Category: gmoses

Bill Weinberg of the ww3 report posts transcripts of two interviews that explore questions of alternative politics in Iraq.

This is an article-style summary of the first interview with Khayal Ibrahim of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) and Samir Noory of the Worker Communist Party of Iraq (WCPI). For complete transcript see http://ww3report.com/iraq1.html

Both OWFI and the WCPI were founded amidst the anti-Saddam uprisings in Kurdistan that were first encouraged, then betrayed, by American operatives following the First Gulf War. Both movements were shut down by the Kurdistan nationalist parties, KDP & PUK. The women were threatened with “honor killings,” says Khayal Ibrahim.

OWFI set up offices at Sulliymaniah and Erbil, publishing a newspaper called “al-Mosawat” or “Equality.”

The present leader of OWFI, Yanar Mohammed, who fled to Canada about 8 years ago, has returned to Baghdad, where she works despite threats on her life. On March 8 she led a street protest in Baghdad against the adoption of religious law, Shari’a, into the Iraq Constitution. Accounts of the protest, with pictures, may be found in newsletters posted at the OWFI website, equalityiniraq.com

The proposed law, Article 137, which was defeated by OWFI and a coalition of 85 organizations, would have eliminated women’s rights to child custody or choice in marriage and divorce.

Says Ibrahim of Article 137, “Girls just 12 years old can be married against their will with an older man, with no right to say no–her brother or father can say, ‘you are going to marry.’ She has no right to education, she has to wear the veil, she is not allowed to leave the country, she has no civil rights, no human rights. She has none.”

WCPI arose from worker councils that were organized, for example, at cigarette factories in the northern towns of Sulliymaniah and Erbil. In addition, WCPI was active in Dahuk and published a newspaper called “ash-Shuyu’iya-al-Umalliya” or “Worker Communist.”

In 1995, when WCPI protested “fake elections,” some of its members from Najaf and Nasiriya were imprisoned at Abu Ghraib.

Today, says Samir Noory, the worker council movement “is very strong in Baghdad and Kirkuk now, and we still have a presence in Suliymaniah and also in Erbil.” The newspaper is back in print.

“Our leader in Iraq is Rebwar Ahmed, and we have links with the Worker Communist Party of Iran, founded by Mansoor Hekmat, who died of cancer two years ago,” says Noory. (The new communist pary in Iran is different from the old Soviet-linked Tudeh Party. And the ideology of the new groups tends toward Lenin, rather than Trotsky or Mao.)

The office in Nasiriya, however, was shut down by Italian troops. When Noory organized a protest at the Italian consulate in Toronto, he recalls: “I think they said, ‘We don’t need any problems here, and you are communists and the Islamic forces don’t like it.’”

“Political Islam” is the ascendant power in Iraq, protected by occupation armies. Says Noory, “This occupation brought all the forces of political Islam back.”

Noory was born in Kirkuk “the old city” but moved north to Erbil in 1983 where he lived under a fake name until 1998, when he fled to Toronto.

Ibrahim is from Dahuk, where she lived until 1995. With the rise of the Kurdish Nationalist parties, seventy percent of the girls were discouraged from going to school, veils were made compulsory, and “honor killings” were used to further terrorize women. After a friend of hers was killed, she fled with her husband throughTurkey to Toronto.

Saddam contributed to the oppression of women through the promulgation of Article 111, which reinstated “honor killings” and resulted in the immediate massacre of about 200 alleged prostititutes during one week.

Says Ibrahim: “Saddam’s Fedayeen. He beheaded more than 200 women in Mosul and Baghdad especially. Sometimes they allowed the brother or father or husband to kill, the do the honor killing. They could kill any woman in the family without punishment.”

And regarding the new regime? “The Governing Council is a lot worse–instead of having one Saddam Hussein we have about 25 Saddam Husseins with a much more restrictive Islamic political program. And every day there is a bombing in Iraq, by some kind of reactionary movement trying to impose the same Islamic rule,” says Ibrahim.

Says Noory, “First, before the war started, we said this is the dark scenario. Right now it has become darker. Everyone can see–explosions on the street, kidnappings, especially of women–gangs take women and kids, in Baghdad, and sell them in Arabia, in Jordan… All this has never happened in Iraq.”

Quoting from the transcript:

BW: OK, so how is some kind of democratic secular state going to be established in Iraq after the US pulls out? How do you envision this happening? Who can we concretely loan solidarity to here in New York City and the US?

SN: We believe there is a strong movement–the women’s movement, labor movement, the radical leftist and communist movements, the democratic movements–they can establish a secular country in Iraq. A lot of people! The majority of people in Iraq, they want a secular country. They don’t want a religious or ethnic state. They do not want that.

BW: And you feel the US occupation is collaborating with the fundamentalist elements?

SN: I don’t use this word “fundamentalism,” I use “political Islam.” I don’t divide political Islam into good and bad–I think all of them have the same idea, the same goal. The US doesn’t like bin Laden, so they go with Sistani, they sit down with him and they give him power, they give his people a council seat and everything, just like the US supported political Islam in Afghanistan, in Pakistan. They say “this is fundamentalism,” “this is terrorism,” this is good, this is bad. I don’t know, there is no good and no bad with political Islam–there is just political Islam, they all want Shari’a, they want an Islamic republic like Iran, like Pakistan, like Saudi Arabia. And everyone knows that means stoning, that means cutting off hands, that means no freedom of expression, no freedom of speech, no freedom to publish…

Postscript: An article by Fahd Nasir posted June 2 at the WCPI website alleges that Shi’a rebel Moqtada al-Sadr is no freedom fighter, but an accomplice in efforts to bring Iranian-style rule (shall we say “Political Islam”?) to Iraq.

Worker Communist Party of Iraq (WCPI)
http://www.wpiraq.org/

See also, April 10 statement of the WCPI:
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=4131

Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI)
http://www.equalityiniraq.com/

from Austin via email, posted by permission:

Thanks, that is an excellent article on the exclustion of congress from its legal place in deciding matters of war. I have not seen this most important point made elsewhere and yet it is a vitally important point. One can not let this president and his highly suspect administration steal freedom from the American people.

from John E. Gilmore via email, posted by permission:

DAMN!!…Thanks for recreating several distinctions I had lost.

I definitely noticed the backdrop and my wife and I talked about the fact
that the “Peaceful Transition” speech had been delivered from a College
of War.

And..we noticed that “we” are going to build Iraq a nice shiny …
Worship center? University? ….Jeez…a WalMart even?…. nope….Maximum
Security PRISON!! Now, given the nature and tenure of Saddam’s
regime, do we even remotely believe that Iraq has a shortage of maximum
security prisons?

So…the two things we have committed to build there in the new Cradle
of Democracy are:

A prison…

And

The Biggest, Hugest, most complicated United States Embassy anywhere in
the world!! Three thousand persons will work there, planted smack in the
middle of the Middle of the East. More people than work in Russia, spanning
nearly as many time zones as daylight. More than Canada, our quiet solid
northern neighbor. And who do you think these people will be? For whom will
they work…gimme a break!! It’s a giant House of Spies and Spooks, and it
better be built like God’s Outhouse because no matter what the décor, it
will have the biggest “Kick me here!” sign in history hanging on it.

Thanks again.

[Attn Editors: It’s Bobby Seale in paragraph two–gm]

A Memorial Day Meditation

By Greg Moses

http://peacefile.org/wordpress/

Absolute pacifists are absolutely rare. Even the
ancient Jewish pacifist, Jesus of Nazareth, got so
pissed off at the sight of holiday shopping that he
tossed tables around with his bare hands. Yet when it
came time to acquit himself before imperial
authorities, he steadfastly refused.

Stew Albert tells a story about the late Dave
Dellinger, “the life long pacifist” who “got in some
real shoving matches with the Federal Marshals” as
they tied Bobby Seale to a courtroom chair. Yet
Dellinger, “the wrestling pacifist,” chose prison over
war. So pacifism is nearly always a position that one
takes in relation to circumstances.

Anti-war pacifism in recent centuries arises out of a
judgment that the institution of war, waged by
structures of the capitalist state, cooly delivers
death to the many and profits to the few. The
stronger the institution of war becomes, the more
death and profit we may expect, with ever diminishing
returns to the greater good.

Yet along with modern pacifism come modern
philosophies of existentialism, pragmatism, and
postmodernism, with their philosophical assertions
that reality always resists the single meaning. If
war is indeed a profiteering enterprise, it can be
other things, too. Even among liberals and lefties,
there are very few who oppose all war at all times.

And finally, even among the very few pacifists who
counsel young folks about conscientious objection, who
refuse to pay taxes for military use, and who go to
prison for crossing some line, even among these
present day saints one finds abiding respect for the
individual conscience, and therefore respect for the
soldier or citizen who believes that wars can be
fought a right way.

So on this Memorial Day, the third one to be
celebrated since the massacres of Sept. 11, 2001, I
wonder if there is a liberal, lefty, pacifist,
anti-war activist to be found who does not find a way
to honor the soldier of conscience.

For the soldier of conscience, military service is a
way of risking one’s life for others, preparing to
take a bullet, and being part of a larger whole that
lives because some are willing to die. For the
soldier of conscience then, the value of war lies not
in the willingness to kill, but in the readiness to be
killed.

The military uniform, therefore, when worn by a
soldier of conscience, is a public sign to the rest of
the world that here walks a person who is prepared to
do your dying for you. On Memorial Day, the graves
call up to us. Here lie soldiers of conscience who
died so that you could live.

The soldier of conscience is in on my mind this
Memorial Day weekend as I think about the publicity
stunt that the President pulled Monday, when he staged
a reading of his stock war speech at the Army War
College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Surely the President noticed right away that the
audience at the War College was not going to be the
adoring crowd that he had found a few days earlier at
an AIPAC rally. But this is precisely the difference
that one would expect to find between an audience that
does not wear uniforms and one that does, because,
when you talk about war to audiences that wear
uniforms, you are talking to them about making use of
their readiness to die.

I wonder for instance, whether the President is aware
of Directive 1344.10, published by the Department of
Defense. It is an updated regulation that reiterates
some long-standing ethical principles that are
supposed to regulate the power of the uniform in
political affairs. Simply put, the American military
uniform is not to be used for political purposes.

Yet press reports and commentaries surrounding the
President’s speech were hardly guessing at the
political nature of the President’s speech. He was

speaking in a “battleground state” about political
policies that were clearly a matter of national and
international dispute.

“Generations of officers have come here to study the
strategies and history of warfare,” said the President
to the War College. “I’ve come here tonight to report
to all Americans, and to the Iraqi people, on the
strategy our nation is pursuing in Iraq, and the
specific steps we’re taking to achieve our goals.”

With two disjointed sentences, the President tells the
War College audience that regardless of their reasons
for being at Carlisle, he is here to make a national
and international political appeal. The uniforms of
the Army War College, here on display, will serve as
so much televised backdrop for a flagging political
campaign. What “we’re doing” in terms of a strategy
crafted by a partisan Republican administration
becomes a strategy already dressed in uniforms worn by
soldiers of conscience.

A soldier on active duty, says Directive 1344.10
(Enclosure C.3.9) shall not: “Participate in any
radio, television, or other program or group
discussion as an advocate of a partisan political
party or candidate.” Yet on Monday night the
Commander in Chief of the War College in effect
ordered his troops to lend their uniforms to the
unethical purpose of advancing his partisan Republican
image. What choice did they have but to salute him?

Well, perhaps the press has been accurately reporting
that Monday night’s speech was “more of the same.” It
all depends which same you start from. On the
unethical use of the lives and uniforms of soldiers of
conscience indeed, this President continues to sink
lower each day.

http://www.defenselink.mil/dodgc/defense_ethics/ethics_regulation/1344-10.html

And His Pledge to Destroy Abu Ghraib Prison was a Filthy Mislead

By Greg Moses
first published at Rob Kall’s OpEdNews.Com

Already two claims have been repeated about the President’s War College speech, but both claims are misleading. First is the claim that the speech offered nothing new. But this claim is misleading because it fails to take seriously the meaning of the venue or the prime time schedule. The image of the War College audience is not just another backdrop. Second is the claim that the only news of the evening was the President’s pledge to demolish Abu Ghraib prison. And this is misleading, because the President promised to replace that prison first.

If we correct for these misleading claims, the War College speech becomes another kind of promise from the President—not to stay the course, nor to abolish the power of prison in Iraq . Rather, the President promises the War College audience that he plans to fully exploit the US uniformed services to advance the construction of a globalized garrison state. Before Abu Ghraib can be torn town, said the President in effect, the US Army will protect the contractors that will build the replacement prison. And he said all this in such a way that his proposals were met with a burst of televised applause from the uniformed professionals themselves.

No, the War College speech was not nothing new. It was a crucial escalation in a plain agenda of power over the people, both at home and abroad.

….