2003 in my memory
During the first war in Iraq, I was still very young and emotionally, I was sad to see young people going at war to protect another country. Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait, the big country swallowing the small one. I had no idea of the real reasons of the war but I felt that it was my duty to support the troops because it was a chance to me living in a country were other people would fight for my own freedom.
The geography of the Middle East has changed after the end of the first war. The influence of France has been dissolved among the many countries of the coalition, mainly England and the United-States. The United Nations have established a sanction over Iraq which was called the "Oil for food program", a middle age solution where the rich asks the poor to provide its resources in exchange of food. This program could only raise anger and incomprehension among the people and mostly because the oil was the only valuable good of a prosperous Iraq.
Iraq has been divided among the two different religions of Islam, Sunnis and Shiites. The Sunnis were governing Iraq and the Shiites people were under the fatal governance of Saddam Hussein. The first Iraq war has deepen the suffering of the Shia people. Between 1991 and 2003 and estimation of 2 million Shia people have fled Iraq and dozens of thousands were found killed in mass graves for which, France is said to have a huge responsibility .
Source: page 192 of "The French Betrayal of America" from Kenneth R. Timmerman
"There was a sinister, unreported side to the French "perfidy" in Iraq. Just two months before signing the contract with Total, some twelve thousand Iraqi troops launched an offensive through the Howeiza marshed in southern Iraq from April 18 to 28, 1994. Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurdish member of the opposition Iraqi National Congress who went on to become foreign minister of the Iraqi provisional government in 2003, told me that the offensive was "specifically linked" to the oil deal with France. According to Zebari, the French were refusing to send their oil engineers into an area where they could potentially be kidnapped by rebel forces. So they suggested that the Iraqiq "clean up" the area ahead of time. Thousands of Iraqi "marsh Arabs" paid the ultimate price for this particular instance of French cupidity."
"Some of the information below is taken from Fact Sheet - Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and Bureau of Public Affairs
Mass graves in Iraq are characterized as unmarked sites containing at least six bodies. Some can be identified by mounds of earth piled above the ground or as deep pits that appear to have been filled. Some older graves are more difficult to identify, having been covered by vegetation and debris over time. Sites have been discovered in all regions of the country and contain members of every major religious and ethnic group in Iraq as well as foreign nationals, including Kuwaitis and Saudis. Over 250 sites have been reported, of which approximately 40 have been confirmed to date. Over one million Iraqis are believed to be missing in Iraq as a result of executions, wars and defections, of whom hundreds of thousands are thought to be in mass graves. Most of the graves discovered to date correspond to one of five major atrocities perpetrated by the regime.
According to Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, many mass graves in Kurdistan contain Iraqi Kurds, who were killed in a genocidal act just because of their ethnicity.
1979 crackdown on Shia political parties and Shia activists. This period involved thousands of "Revolutionary Court" trials which meant groups of 200-500 Shia young men and women as young as 13 would be hoarded together and sentenced to death.
1982 the aggressive tactics by Saddam regime to crush any Shia movements, following the kidnapping and brutal murder of a key Shia Leader Ayatollah Mohamed Baqir Al-Sadr. In this year tens of thousands of Iraq young men, women and children were sentenced to death under the accusation of joining a political party. Those who were lucky - after unimaginable torture and interrogation - would be sentenced to Lifetime imprisonment.
The 1983 attack against Kurdish citizens belonging to the Barzani tribe, 8,000 of whom were rounded up by the regime in northern Iraq and executed in deserts at great distances from their homes.
The 1988 Anfal campaign, during which as many as 182,000 Iraqi Kurds disappeared. Most of the men were separated from their families and were executed in deserts in the west and south-west of Iraq. The remains of some of their wives and children have also been found in mass graves.
Chemical attacks against Kurdish villages from 1986 to 1988, including the Halabja attack, when the Iraqi Air Force dropped sarin, VX and tabun chemical agents on the civilian population, killing 5,000 people immediately and causing long-term medical problems, related deaths, and birth defects among the progeny of thousands more.
The 1991 massacre of Iraqi Shia Muslims after the Shia uprising at the end of the Gulf war, in which tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in regions such as Basra, Karbala, Najaf, Nasiriya, Amara and Al-Hillah were killed. Thousands of homes were demolished and vast areas of Iraq's marches were dried up causing devastating effect on the lives of people and the environment.
Then, in March 1999, thousands more were believed to have been arrested, imprisoned and in some cases executed after a second uprising broke out after the killing of a prominent Shiite cleric.
on 13th of May 2003, the British Newspaper the Daily Mail reported that "Iraqis pulled bound and blindfolded bodies out of a newly-discovered mass grave outside Basra, excavating a site thought to contain the remains of up to 150 Shia Muslims during Saddam's repression of a 1999 uprising".
In May 2003, Amnesty International reported finding a grave containing 40 bodies at Abul Khasib in southern Iraq, which is almost exclusively Shia, thought to contain bodies from the 1991 Shia uprising.
A massacre of Kurds in 1991, which targeted civilians and soldiers who fought for autonomy in northern Iraq after the Gulf war, also resulted in mass graves.
Facts on the Fact Sheet appear to have been those gathered by US Senate committee investigations.
South of Baghdad a mass grave was uncovered which is thought to contain 60,000 Shia victims of the 1991 popular uprising which was brutally quelled by Saddam's Republican Guards.
In 2003, just in the first a few days after Saddam's regime was toppled, 72 bodies were recovered who
The remains of 113 Kurds, most of whom were women, children and teenagers, have been uncovered near Samawah.
Discovery of mass grave sites in Iraq has been done through the analysis of satellite imagery. This has 18 suspected sites, two of which are excavated having 28 and 10 adult males.
3,115 corpses uncovered in Mahaweel is one of the largest found believed to contain Iraqi Shia. (11/2003).
2,000 corpses found in the Shia city of Hillah.
Tony Blair has stated 'We've already discovered, just so far, the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves.' (11/03) The actual number of corpses found was closer to 5,000 (2004).
In 2004, BBC reported finding babies in mass graves dating to Saddam's era. "The skeletons of unborn babies and toddlers clutching toys are being unearthed, the investigators said."
In April 2011, a mass grave was found containing 800 bodies in Anabr (West of Iraq), believed to be from the 1991 Shia uprising. Those bodies seemed to have been executed (point blank) and buried.
The recovery of corpses is reported to be slow due to local violence and the need for identification of corpses, isolation of remains, forensics, etc. Relatives have rushed to the graves in remembrance of missing relatives.
"On 6 August 1990, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 661 which imposed economic sanctions on Iraq, providing for a full trade embargo, excluding medical supplies, food and other items of humanitarian necessity, these to be determined by the Security Council sanctions committee. After the end of the Gulf War and after the Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, the sanctions were linked to removal of weapons of mass destruction by Resolution 687 . From 1991 until 2003 the effects of government policy and sanctions regime led to hyperinflation, widespread poverty and malnutrition. The historically generous state welfare provision that had been central to the regime's governing strategy disappeared overnight. The large and well-educated middle class that had grown in the years of plenty to form the bedrock of Iraqi society was impoverished. The story of Iraq from 1991 until 2003 is of a country suffering a profound macroeconomic shock."
"Since the Gulf War, various news reports, essays, and critiques have been published concerning the physical devastation brought about by coalition force bombing attacks. No doubt, the ruinous aftermath remains a very important environmental, economic, and cultural concern. One of the more important internal problems, however, has been quietly unfolding over the past four years. It involves an attempt, by the Iraqi Government, to force the Ma'dan people (roughly 500,000 of them), the so-called 'Marsh Arabs,' out of their southern wetland settlements by literally "draining life from Iraq's marshes." Reaching beyond the social and political ramifications, the permanent environmental and economic damage caused by this policy may be irreversible. By diverting the water flow of one of the most famous and important river systems in the world (the Tigris/Euphrates), the Iraqi leaders appear to be tampering with not only their environment but with their historical legacy, as well."
"In March 1991 revolts in the Shia-dominated southern Iraq started involving demoralized Iraqi Army troops and the anti-government Shia parties. Another wave of insurgency broke out shortly afterwards in the Kurdish populated northern Iraq (see 1991 uprisings in Iraq). Although they presented a serious threat to the Iraqi Ba'ath Party regime, Saddam Hussein managed to suppress the rebellions with massive and indiscriminate force and maintained power. They were ruthlessly crushed by the loyalist forces spearheaded by the Iraqi Republican Guard and the population was successfully terrorized. During the few weeks of unrest tens of thousands of people were killed. Many more died during the following months, while nearly two million Iraqis fled for their lives. In the aftermath, the government intensified the forced relocating of Marsh Arabs and the draining of the Iraqi marshlands, while the Allies established the Iraqi no-fly zones."
There is a word to sum up all the sufferance of the Shiites people in Iraq which is "genocide". On September 11th, 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush sums up the reasons to go on war against Saddam Hussein. Eleven years later, Al-Qaeda launches an attack on the US territory. On March 19th, 2003, President George W. Bush goes alone with the United-Kingdom on war against the Saddam Hussein regime. Nowadays events in Syria and the raise of ISIL is said to be the direct consequence of the US policy under President George W. Bush. Is it ?
"The February 15, 2003 anti-war protest was a coordinated day of protests across the world in which people in more than 600 cities expressed opposition to the imminent Iraq War. It was part of a series of protests and political events that had begun in 2002 and continued as the war took place. Social movement researchers have described the 15 February protest as "the largest protest event in human history.
Sources vary in their estimations of the number of participants involved. According to BBC News, between six and eleven million people took part in protests in up to sixty countries over the weekend of the 15th and 16th; other estimates range from eight million to thirty million.
Some of the largest protests took place in Europe. The protest in Rome involved around three million people, and is listed in the 2004 Guinness Book of World Records as the largest anti-war rally in history. Madrid hosted the second largest rally with more than 1½ million people protesting the invasion of Iraq."
(..)
"The February 15 international protests were unprecedented not only in terms of the size of the demonstrations but also in terms of the international coordination involved. Researchers from the University of Antwerp claim that the day was possible only because it "was carefully planned by an international network of national social movement organisations."
Immanuel Wallerstein has spoken of the international protests as being organised by the forces of "the Porto Alegre camp in reference to the emergence of global social movements who had been organising around international events such as the 2001 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. Some commentators claim this is an example of "grassroots globalisation", for example one book claims that "The worldwide protests were made possible by globalisation ... But make no mistake—this was not your CEO's globalisation. The peace demonstrations represented, not a globalisation of commerce, but a globalisation of conscience".
The idea for an international day of demonstrations was first raised by the British anti-capitalist group Globalise Resistance (GR) in the wake of an anti-war demonstration in Britain of 400,000 on September 28. At the time GR was involved in planning for the Florence European Social Forum (ESF) and brought up the suggestion at an ESF planning meeting. According to GR's Chris Nineham, "There was considerable controversy. Some delegates were worried it would alienate the mainstream of the movement. We, alongside the Italian delegates, had to put up a strong fight to get it accepted."
The proposal was accepted and at the final rally of the ESF, in November 2002, the call officially went out for Europe-wide demonstrations on February 15, 2003. This call was firmed up in December at a planning meeting for the next (2003) ESF which took place in Copenhagen. This meeting was attended by delegates from many European anti-war organisations, the US group United for Peace and Justice, and representatives of groups from the Philippines. The decision was taken to set up a Europe-wide anti-war website and to commit to spreading organisational coordination both within and beyond Europe. An email network connecting the different national organisations across Europe, and eventually also the different US groups, was set up.
In December 2002, the Cairo Anti-war Conference pledged to organise demonstrations in Egypt and the International Campaign Against Aggression on Iraq (which came out of the Cairo conference) sought to co-ordinate more demonstrations across the world. Around this time, the US anti-war group International ANSWER, a front group for the ISO, called for actions in North America supporting the proposed protests in Europe
Another important platform for the spreading call to demonstrate internationally occurred at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil which took place at the end of 2002. European delegates sought to popularise the plan for the increasingly international demonstration. They met with some success, including the organisation of an anti-war assembly which was attended by almost 1000 people."
The resistance against the US troops has been organized long time before the war started in Iraq and from the outside of Iraq, taking its roots in Europe and America. It was a public support to the later resistance in Iraq managed by the former military, secret services and supporters of Saddam Hussein.
Part of the word, inspired by a "globalization of conscience" has been blind on the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein, blind over the many troubles brought by the links between Saddam Hussein and France, even under the UN restrictions between 1991 and 2003, and generally blind over the mistakes of the Middle Age United-Nations' policy on Iraq by ruling with heavy and devastating sanctions. The world has been blind and still be blind on the war in Syria nowadays.
Nowadays policy follows the path of the populist and anti-Bush discourses among intellectuals, journalists, associations and political ideologies, but an anti-Bush policy is not a policy at all. It's just an electorate that stands on the general belief that war are managed by crazy dictators. Unfortunately, wars are not only the result of dictators. They can be also the result of mass populations gathering in their belief of some kind of truth, anti-military, anti-authoritarian systems. The sad result can be a civil war, far more dangerous and devastating than military wars. This is the policy of the West nowadays, providing weapons to civilians so they can kill each other.
I remember this anti-Bush policy started in 2003 when the "Iraqi resistance" started to attack the US military convoys. This was the beginning of blogging. This was also the beginning of Yahoo and its search engine on pictures. I used to collect all the pictures showing the attacks on US military troops and it appeared strange to me that journalists were always there at the exact time when an attack occurred. Western media companies were sending their journalists alongside the Iraqi resistance to document their attack on US troops. This was no more journalism but documented executions. Reuters (read this and this about the Reuters "Agency") and APP were the two main companies involved in Iraqi attacks while Al-Jazeera was starting a new business. This is the root of ISIL's communication nowadays, following the many years of Saddam Hussein dictatorship on Iraq.
France and the United-Kingdom hate each other since always, but the design of the Middle East maps has shape a new kind of war. The cold war with Russia started when Russia invaded a province of Iran, then the competition between France and the United-Kingdom never stopped. The United-States were the first to offer large benefits to the local kingdoms what the European countries had to follow, resolving their costs by managing the local conflicts.
Before the war started on March 19th, 2003, Tony Blair documented the "smoking gun" affair with Iraq what was presented to the United-Nations by Colin Powel. The United-States have deliberately put their own challenge on going at war with false documented proves that they did not make themselves, but that the United-Kingdom provided on time. The willing was to stop the hidden networks of Saddam Hussein, especially linked to the French banks, petroleum companies, construction companies and the French army. France had already provided nukes to Saddam Hussein. What else could they do for their own politics ? And what if those nukes would fell into terrorists hands ?
The "global anti-Bush conscience" against the decision of President George W. Bush to go at war with Iraq has become a "real time politic" that went to support the policy of Jacques Chirac with France, Africa and the Middle East. The old networks of Gaullism (the Foccard networks, brought back to politics with Jacques Chirac in 1995) had a full range of opportunities that leftists, following the large international demonstrations, could take for themselves in the willing to control the networks, the companies linked to these networks and the financial power to level their politics. The French Free-masonry has become a super-power linked to this large amount of political and economical opportunities. It has also leverage the policy in America regarding the history of the wars, the Middle East and Europe.
My feeling is that America has become the hostage of Europe, with an anti-American feeling raising all over the Mediterranean sea. Both France and the United-Kingdom are pulling the threads of the United-States between fears and alliances, cold and hot wars, threats and love stories. ISIL is the baby born result of those policies in a Muslim world that becomes more educated, more willing to power and to self governance. In a Muslim World also, where Saudi Arabia does not change and still govern the Muslim world its own way.
After the war in 2003, the victims of Saddam Hussein have gain the power. The Shiites governance has also gain the support of Iran that always was the asylum of the Shiites Iraqis. Under the threat of the many genocides committed by the Sunnis, the Shiites people have the determination of living and fighting to not die and lay in a mass grave. This might be a part of the history that the French people may not want to know because they have tasted the praise of the crowds demonstrating against Bush. They still believe that "anti-Bush" is the shape of a policy while behind the policy, there is the name of a crime.
When France launches an "operation Cesar", there is no design against Bashar al-Assad, not even against Russia. The design of this operation is directed against the people of America to raise the part of the conscience that wants to see the many crimes of Bashar Al-Assad only. The problem, is that Syria is a young nation, that the frontiers were design by France and the United-Kingdom and that none of them are neutral. The problem also is that the landscape is difficult with many groups, ethnics and religions. The Sunnis would like to eradicate the adversity of the religions while Shiites have shown many more tolerances.
Personally, I believe that no peace cannot come without truth because the people have suffered and they need to tell their sufferance to accept any kind of peace. I wanted to react to this article, but I could not find the words : http://news.yahoo.com/eu-odds-over-assad-role-syrian-transition-163446668.html
I believe that if we shall find some kind of "occupation" to Bashar Al-Assad, it would be to manage a memorial to the victims of the genocide both as a victim and as a punishment. When a delinquent paints a wall, he must clean the wall or perform a task that would help the public wealth and I believe that a memorial would help the Shiites people in Syria and Iraq to tell their story. It would help the Sunnis people to tell also their story and inside the story, find their own culprit and give their own pardon.
When clerics, in Saudi Arabia are calling the Sunnis to raise against Syria, Russia and Iran, this is silly and dangerous. As religious leaders, they shall rather call the Sunnis world to brotherhood, understanding and friendship. This is hard to bring the people together, make them talk, try to understand each point of view, but I would not imagine any other challenge from God than learning, changing, and becoming good.
God has created the people different. Let the work of God done properly by showing some tolerance and some understanding inside the diversity and the history of each people. If there would be a challenge today, it would be for any religion to learn not having fears of the others and I guess the master peace would be the acceptance of an independent government that is neutral to any other kind of belief. Some people say it's laicism which technically, is very different from one other side of the Atlantic. I would call it the fairness of a paternalist and maternalist country.
We cannot expect the good to arrive itself without any kind of effort. To have the peace, we must want and trust the peace. To have a better world, we have to imagine this world and trust its values. I want to believe that after Russia entered the game of war in the Middle East, something new can happen. I want to believe in the peace between Israel and Hezbollah. I want to believe in a dialogue between Iran and Israel, and I want to believe in an axis of peace from Egypt to Iran. I want also to believe that Saudi Arabia can change and see the many mistakes of its own history. I want to believe that the Sunnis country in the world have some kind of humanity and can understand the sufferance of the Shiites people in Iraq, and then that tolerance is a value common to all the religions.
I want to believe, and I can believe because I am free in America. I want also to believe that America can value itself on fair and human policies. And may God bless America.
