Iraqi resistance units have increased their attacks across the country, especially in the central region from just south of Baghdad to Mosul. Anyone working for the U.S. occupation forces there is at serious risk. That region's population hates the occupation forces more each day, and many sympathize with resistance fighters.
News reports from Dec. 3 to Dec. 6 followed a familiar pattern. Eleven U.S. troops died in combat deaths, mostly from roadside bombs and ambushes. This included five Marines in Ambar province alone. Ambushes or car bombs killed more than 60 puppet Iraqi troops or civilian employees of the occupation forces. The attacks indicated that the resistance had inside intelligence.
The Bush administration has ordered an increase of U.S. troop strength in Iraq from 138,000 to 150,000 by using "stop-loss" orders that prevent 12,000 troops from leaving Iraq on schedule. Bush insists the Jan. 30 elections--which the U.S. occupation imposed on Iraq contrary to all international law--will take place no matter what, and that these troops are needed to keep order.
Dozens of political and religious organizations, most but not all from Sunni areas and Baghdad, have either called for a boycott or asked for a postponement of elections.
Less clear are the changes in consciousness and organization that go on below the radar screen of the Pentagon and its embedded reporters. This includes U.S. troop morale and the development of anti-occupation movements in the southern, mostly Shiite region of Iraq.
Who gains from civil war?
Almost all U.S. corporate media reports of mosque or church bombings claim that the "insurgents" want to stir up "sectarian violence" and assert that a civil war is likely, especially should U.S. troops leave. None of these reports explain how "sectarian violence" would help the anti-occupation forces unite all Iraqis to throw out the U.S. troops.
A story posted Dec. 4 by un-embedded reporter Dahr Jamail on a mosque bombing implies a possible U.S. role. (dahrjamailiraq.com)
"The Hamid al-Alwan mosque, a small Shia mosque in the predominantly Sunni area of Adhamiya had been hit with a car bomb. ... In the end, 14 were killed, 19 wounded. ..."
U.S. and Iraqi troops didn't appear. "The Iraqi Police, however, did show up at the scene. Most of them wearing facemasks to protect their identity (this is Adhamiya) ... but one man, a muscular, arrogant, loud-spoken policeman, unmasked, was yelling, 'Of course this happened because this is a Shia mosque! The Sunni hate the Shia!'
"Members of the crowd perceived his actions as deliberately provocative and inflammatory.
"Aisha Dulaimy, a resident of al-Adhamiya, said, 'The reason for this car bomb is the Americans want to cause a split between the Shia and Sunni. But there has never been fighting between the Shia and Sunni in the history of Iraq. They want to make a struggle between us, but it will never work.'"
In an interview in the Dec. 6 German daily Junge Welt, Sammi Alaa of the resistance group the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance answered a question on Sunni-Shiite differences:
"The Western media state again and again that a majority Sunni boycott [of elections] could lead to a civil war with the Shiites. ... Ordinary people accept neither collaboration with the occupation nor the U.S. strategy of divide and conquer. There is a large pressure from below on the clerics to condemn the elections and some already have. It will thus not come to the desired religious civil war. The front line runs between the occupiers on one side and the resistance and the supporting people on the other side."
U.S. troop morale
Meanwhile U.S. troops' daily activity is one big war crime of rounding up or killing a pro-resistance population as they themselves face grave and growing dangers of death or maiming.
The first signs of troop rebellion come not as full-blown political opposition to the criminal war on Iraq, but as complaints of unfair treatment.
On Dec. 6, lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights representing eight U.S. troops filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., to win the troops' release from the U.S. military. The troops say they are being kept on duty longer than their terms of enlistment specified, by "stop-loss" orders.
David Qualls, whose enlistment in the National Guard was supposed to end last July, said: "What this boils down to, in my opinion, is a question of fairness. You and I make a contract; we fulfill our contract or we breach our contract. You need to be fair. Let us go home." Qualls told reporters he was a "patriot."
Another telling event was the Penta gon's decision to avoid what would be high-publicity courts-martial for the 23 reservist troops of the 343rd Quarter master Company who refused a mission transporting fuel along a dangerous road in Iraq. These troops complained of poor equipment and lack of armor and escort. They are being hit with non-judicial Article 15 punishments, such as loss in rank and pay.
Under peacetime conditions, these punishments might stop troops from disobeying orders. Troops now in Iraq, however, might agree with Rickey Shealey of Quinton, Ala. Shealey, whose son Scott is a private with the 343rd, said: "I'm glad it's over with. I don't care if he comes back as a private or a general. I just want him to come back."
Reprinted from the Dec. 16, 2004, issue of Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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