- It is now five days since the British and US governments
launched an unprecedented military invasion of my country of birth, its
people, land, towns and cities. This attack was launched without UN authority,
public support or the will of the international community. To win support
for this unjust and illegal campaign, it has been claimed that this is
not a colonial war of occupation but a war of liberation; a compassionate
war. Britain and the US will save the Iraqis by bombing so they can thrive
in a democratic Iraq and live at ease with their neighbours. Those who
believed the hype expected the Iraqis to welcome the invading armies. After
British troops were forced to retreat from Basra yesterday, a military
spokesman said: "We were expecting a lot of hands up, but it hasn't
quite worked out that way."
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- It is now clear to everyone that ordinary Iraqis are
resisting this military aggression with their lives and souls. Commentators
and politicians in Britain and America seem taken aback: how come the Iraqis
are putting up such a fight? Why do they so passionately resist this attempt
to liberate them from the brutal dictator, Saddam? But Iraqis aren't surprised
at all.
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- When Iraq was first colonised by Britain in 1917, Iraqis
were fed the same British propaganda about liberation through occupation.
We fought the best part of last century to get rid of colonial Britain
and, since then, have helped a great number of independence movements worldwide.
Iraqis may wish for the current regime to change, but anyone who understands
our culture will know that in this war Iraqis will fight and die, not to
save President Saddam Hussein, but to protect their home, land, dignity
and self-respect from a new world order alien to their way of life. We
are an enormously proud people.
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- And so history repeats itself. Just as in the past century,
the military superiority of the Anglo-American invaders may eventually
overwhelm the Iraqi army, which is weak and ill-equipped because of sanctions,
containment and isolation. But there is also no doubt that in the end this
military crusade against Iraq will fail just like the previous British
occupation of Iraq, led by General Maude, where the military odds were
just as much in favour of the British army. Iraqis - in particular the
Arab-Iraqi Shi'ites - fought bitter and hard and suffered thousands of
casualties in order to liberate Iraq from the British occupation. They
will do so again.
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- It is true that, this time, the British and US forces
may assume control of sea, air and deserts of Iraq, but they will never
win the war for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Not only do the
people of Iraq face devastation by the US and UK aggression on a scale
not previously known to mankind, but they also face death and destruction
by another war - the civil war that would inevitably follow. We know what
this means, because we have been there before.
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- As a young lad in the town of Mosul I lived through the
horror of the civil war in Iraq in 1959-60, when the communist and Kurdish
coalition fought the nationalists for control of the country. With my brothers
and parents, we used to hide huddled together, in a small concealed basement
for days on end, absolutely terrified of being slaughtered because we were
considered to be on the Nationalist side.
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- I saw Iraqis split in half, while alive, by two cars.
Girls were hanged from telegraph posts, with fish hooks through their breasts.
Men were hanged outside my school gates. We were forced to watch mass hangings
in public squares. Dead bodies with their throats slit lay in the streets.
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- Forty years on, in the comfort and safety of London,
those images remain vivid. A scar of fear for life, and one shared by a
great many of my people.
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- This is the fate that awaits "liberated" Iraq.
Only today, the Kurds - backed by the US - have even more violent scores
to settle. There are many, many people in Iraq today who fear the sectarian
violence that may result from the breakdown of the secular regime; and
Iraqi history shows that they are right to fear it. I do not wish this
future to await anybody in the world, friend or foe.
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- Neither the British nor the American forces will be able
to react quickly enough in order to prevent the slaughter of innocent civilians
in the ensuing civil war. In the aftermath there will not be an Iraq to
re-build, but simply chaos.
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- So the message from Iraq is clear: go home and leave
us alone. You will never be welcome in Iraq as colonisers. Stop destroying
Iraq. Do not bury our nation. Stop the war and give peace and the UN inspectors
a chance in the name of humanity.
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- Dr Burhan M al-Chalabi is chairman of the British Iraqi
Foundation and a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,921197,00.html
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