THE BUSH-BLAIR DOCTRINE

THE BUSH-BLAIR DOCTRINE

By Mumia Abu-Jamal

The Iraq war is over.

Or is it?

After a spate of attacks that have cost American lives almost daily, the newly-minted general in charge of the region, Abizaid, has been forced to admit the obvious: Iraqis are waging a guerilla war against the British and American foreigners who came "to bring them freedom and democracy."

Meanwhile, the Bush-Blair axis is frayed at the seams with the White House's recent admission that Bush should not have given that old "Niger gave Saddam uranium" ploy, as it was being easily demolished in Europe already.

The Great Iraq Victory over the Forces of Tyranny is fast becoming a Great Big Mess. Iraqis, like most folks, don't like being told what to do by outsiders. They may not have loved their wily president, Hussein, but he is beginning to look lovely beside the specter of British and Americans riding roughshod over their country, telling them what they can do and what they can't do; telling them what they can say and what they can't say.

Several days ago, a young man on Death Row made an interesting remark when a bunch of men were discussing the latest events coming out of Iraq.

He first stated, "O.K., now that it looks that they lied to the American people to justify goin' in there, shouldn't they give dude his country back?"

When several men laughed at his remark, he added, seriously, "Look--they used bogus reasons to go in there; they took over them people's country-- seriously. Now that ain't right. Can't they give it back to those people?"

Some of us laughed; others simply pondered it, as if the thought never occurred to us before.

The Americans didn't drop mass tonnage over Baghdad to bring "democracy" to the Iraqis. Britons didn't strike Najaf to introduce the Iraqis to "parliamentary democracy."

The Bush and Blair war plans didn't seek to "liberate" the Iraqi people. They can certainly find millions of people in the world who are not liberated. Britain can look no further than its perpetual colony of over 700 years, Ireland. The U.S. can look to its Caribbean colony, the so- called Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

They went to war carrying the briefs of big business, in search, not of liberty, but of the vast oil deposits that sit almost within arm's reach in the desert regions.

Before the war, millions of people yelled, at the top of their lungs, "No blood for oil!" They were right then; they are right now.

The U.S. Empire pushed the UN to the breaking point when it wouldn't sign on to their adventure. It sought to isolate the French and the Germans, and America went postal for several weeks against everything French. Now that the Americans are welcomed with bursts of gunfire instead of bouquets of flowers, the Empire that wanted to go it alone is reaching out to "Old Europe" (or at least old India) to give them a hand, to share the cost of administering their empire. "Old Europe," at the moment, seems cool to the idea.

... The war was easily started. But it ain't so easy to end.