Extra, Extra! Open Season on Iran!
Press Action
Thursday, July 08, 2004
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/fiyouzat07082004/

By Reza Fiyouzat

The official crimes have now been announced to have been committed by the dictator of Baghdad, who, at one critical point, was very chummy-friendly toward, so he readily shook hands with, Rumsfeld, and by extension fondled with Reagan’s digits with just as much economic and political pleasure.

By filing the charges that were deemed worthy of prosecution, the tribunal in the same act and by inference (and simultaneously creating precedent) justified the past invasion by Saddam in 1980 and any future invasion by the United States.

Some of us from the so-called Third World, having followed history enough, in reading the moves made by the U.S. do not look to principles to see the guidelines for the possible future directions taken by great powers that help themselves to our resources, lands, natural goods, as well as to our peoples. We do not consider abstract notions such as “democracy,” “human rights,” or, more to the point these days, “security” as the real motive driving the scheming to which we have to find some response.

Such fanciful notions are to be expected to be espoused by the so called intellectuals of the First World, even as the real export values of these abstractions are persistently undercut primarily by the actions of the exporters; those paid chatterboxes, who must spin for their money, will ceaselessly do so, otherwise they get spun out of a job or get denied entry into a career. Their spinning is as predictable as the turn of the sundial.

What we do look at to divine the motivations and plans of the predators are trends and tendencies, and more specifically the “legalities” they actively promote in the foreground. And, so it is that we know the verdict is in. The verdict, that is, not regarding Saddam; he was a sick, guilty shaker of the hand of the devil from day one of his sad career.

It is now official: The invasion of Iran in September 1980 by Saddam Hussein’s armed forces, diplomatically, financially, logistically and openly supported by the U.S. and the UK and a good half of “old” Europe was absolutely okay. That is correct. There were no violations of any international laws committed by Saddam in invading Iran. None whatsoever!

In charges filed by the Iraqi show tribunal condemning Saddam, he is being accused of the following:

What is more, the UN too, by approving the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq ex post facto, and approving the proceedings currently ongoing against Saddam Hussein and agreeing to the charges brought against him, has approved the 1980 Iraqi invasion of Iran.

As Utanazad, an Iranian writer in Tehran, muses conclusively, “So: the invasion of Kuwait bad! The other invasion [of Iran ] good! Massacre of the Kurds (now) bad! The other massacre and mass poisoning [of up to 100,000 Iranians] (still) good! 11 of his advisors bad! His powerful enablers good! No shame, really! The message Mr. Bush’s Occupation Force and their Iraqi collaborators have chosen to send us is being heard loud and clear. The latest chapter of the saga which began on 9/11 is finding (temporary) closure in this Kangaroo court. Nothing has changed after all.” (Utanazad, “The kangaroo court,” from weblog, Brooding Persian, Friday, July 02, 2004)

Throughout the 1980s numerous companies from the U.S. and the UK, enriched themselves by selling all manner of military goods and wares to the regime of Saddam Hussein. The inventory is well documented. Just for one sample, the Scott Report, presented to the British parliament in February 1996. From the Scott Report:

“D2.239 The use by Iraqi Armed Forces of chemical weapons in the war with Iran had been confirmed by intelligence by January 1984. It was believed that Iraq was engaged in manufacturing chemical weapons on a large scale. *346 A number of reports indicated that the Iranian authorities believed the United Kingdom to be involved in the export to Iraq of precursors and equipment required for the manufacture and use of these weapons.”

“D2.241 On 26 March 1984 a United Nations Report on the use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war was published. The Report concluded that both mustard gas and the nerve agent, Tabun, had been used in the fighting but stopped short of stating specifically that Iraq had been responsible. *353 There was no doubt, however, that that was the case.”

“D2.3 In December 1985 Mr Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, paid an official visit to London. He made a call on the Prime Minister on 4 December 1985. The FCO briefing for the Prime Minister [Margaret Thatcher] warned that one of his objectives would be: “To get HMG to agree to a total ban on defence sales to Iran ”. The briefing suggested that the Prime Minister might make in response the following points: “UK defence supplies to Iran minimal. Strictly controlled. Do not enhance Iranian military capability. No equipment to either side which might prolong or exacerbate the conflict. UK policy poses no threat to Iraq, which is extremely well armed (in part by ourselves) but bears heavily on Iran.”

Most weaponry and especially any chemical agents exported by any UK company would have had to acquire exporting licenses issued by the British (or, in the case of American companies, the U.S.) government. So, most of the precursor chemicals necessary for the production of chemical weapons that left the UK or the U.S. must have had the respective government’s knowledge and approval, as alluded to in the above FCO briefing to Margaret Thatcher.

In an interestingly cynical twist, the British government was alert enough not to allow any exportation of devices that could detect chemical weaponry:

“D2.244 On 18 December 1986 the IDC considered whether or not to approve the export to Iran and Iraq of Chemical Agent Monitors (CAMs). CAMs were sensitive, portable, handheld instruments developed for use by service personnel for monitoring the presence of nerve and blister agent vapour. The IDC concluded that the CAMs ‘should not be supplied to either side, both for security reasons and in view of the Government policy of not authorising the supply of any equipment which might assist Iran or Iraq to wage chemical warfare, in the context of which CAM would represent a significant enhancement,’*358.”

So, as a nation who has been invaded by the West’s old favorite boy in our neighborhood, we have a right to ask: What happened to culpability? Is not the defense of Law and its supposedly resultant Liberty the chosen mantra of these Latter Day Liberators? And is not this mantra daily and repeatedly drilled into our Middle Eastern savage heads?

The U.S. forces, displaying long memory of their own Phoenix Project in their war against the people of Vietnam, as well as following the updated and culturally-adjusted instructions of their Israeli military and intelligence regional trainers, in pursuing the “enemy” have found it valuable and necessary to arrest, detain, question, bully and insult, and if need be, torture or kill the family members of supposed terrorists, as well as their friends, distant relatives, close and remote associates or former classmates at will, and in plenty. In this new world system of justice imposed on the Middle East, the U.S. and the Israelis regard it legal to routinely destroy the property of anybody who is, or may vaguely be suspected of having something remotely to do with resisting a foreign occupying army.

Habeas corpus? Say what?

The message from the occupiers to the occupied peoples is clear, “Shut up and love us!” Why? “Because we are here to stay!” Or, even more ornately philosophical, “Because we have big guns!” And that is all there is to their logic and to their confused and vicious “justice,” which is supposed to bring them security.

But, even so, let us take their claims at face value and ask the naïve question: Why is not the same justice applied to Saddam’s former collaborators, backers, supporters, suppliers, functionaries in charge of providing cover, dear friends and companions and allies in mass murder when he was mass murdering Iranians? We, the Iranian people have a right to ask: Where are the salespeople and the CEOs of those companies who sold Saddam his chemicals? Should not Rumsfeld who shook Saddam’s hand be in the dock? Where are the UK government leaders as well as the lowly bureaucrats who approved the exporting licenses that allowed Saddam to acquire chemical agents with which to singe the lives of more than 100,000 Iranians in his invasion and unprovoked war against Iran? Tens of thousands of Iranians to this day suffer from the constant agony of chemically blistered bodies, charred lungs that can’t breathe, and blood poisoned for life. In short, repeated thousands of scorched lives. And no culpability.

On this twilight of the American Independence Day, a day of slavery for the rest of the planet it seems of late, a quote form Frederick Douglass is in order:

“Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them … I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me!” (Frederick Douglass, 5 July 1852, in speech titled, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?)

Slavery, as a potential or an eventuality, has theoretically, by the divine doctrine of Preemptive Warmongering, been extended to the planet. For the time being, it is the peoples of the Middle East/West Asia who are the virtual nation-slaves, at the mercy of the Great Creator of the Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Having razed two countries to the ground, the imperialists at the seat of power in Washington, D.C., have become lazy in even providing the necessary pretexts to invade. Most of us wonder these days why the U.S. policy buffoons even bother coming up with excuses anymore. Be that as it may, they still have to follow established protocol as if by rote and habit, so they do it in a blasé fashion, going, “Yada, yada, yada …” when they present as reason to invade other countries the following: The neighboring countries are sending in foreign fighters!

Foreign fighters? Excuse me? You, the U.S. administration and your UK lackey, who have sent 150,000 very foreign, paid fighters to invade Iraq, a country that posed you zero threat and meant you no harm; you the American officials who knew there were no WMD hidden anywhere in Iraq; you the U.S. government functionaries in the form of advisors, experts, policy analysts, CIA anti-intelligence operatives hailing from Langley, Va., some of you Green Berets or Red Mercenaries walking in total fear at night on the streets of Baghdad’s Green Zone; you the foreign courier carrying a package that will blow up some local Iraqi democrat’s home; are you telling me the local from Abadan, who was invaded by Saddam, with your help, with your support, with your chemical agents, with your technology, with your financing, with your conniving, with your companies laughing all the way to the bank, and back to the banks of hell; are you telling me, that five or 10 or 20 dozen local boys from across the border, five miles away, are a problem? And that for those five or 20 dozen local boys from five miles away, you absolutely have to and must and shall and will invade yet another country and destroy five more nations?

Who is the shameless, cheeky bugger, then?

Here is Frederick Douglass’ exhortation, to which we the newly enslaved peoples of the Middle East ascribe:

“Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employments for my time and strength, than such arguments would imply … At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed … The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes … must be proclaimed and denounced.”

Reza Fiyouzat is an applied linguist and freelance writer living in Japan. Some of Fiyouzat’s writings have appeared on CounterPunch and (in English and Portuguese) on the Brazilian website Revista Espaco Academico. Fiyouzat can be reached at rfaze@gol.com.