------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the April 10, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
U.S. THREATENS SYRIA & IRAN: PROTEST GROWS IN ARAB WORLD
By Richard Becker
The corporate media's coverage of the U.S. war on Iraq goes way beyond what is generally termed propaganda. They have created an "alternative reality" for their U.S. viewers.
In their fabricated "reality," there is on one side an evil demon, a "new Hitler," who plans to dominate the world, spread terror and crush freedom at home and abroad. Never mind that the "new Hitler" has no navy, no real air force, no long-range missiles and an atrophied industrial base.
On the other side is "Freedom-loving America," supported by "Democratic Britain," riding to the rescue, bringing liberation, protecting civilian life and Iraq's oil wealth from the demon, in order to usher in a new era of freedom and democracy for the people of Iraq and the entire Middle East.
"Invaders" should never be used to refer to the U.S./British troops. And never, never call their cruise missiles and 5,000 pound bombs "weapons of mass destruction."
A "cowardly terrorist" is someone who sacrifices his or her life fighting the invad ers, oops, liberators. Civilians fighting to defend their homeland without proper uniforms are committing "war crimes."
True courage consists of sitting in a submarine hundreds of miles away, or in a B-52 at 35,000 feet--high above the other side's anti-aircraft range--and firing cruise missiles into populated areas.
This is the science fiction movie running on eight networks, 24/7 in the United States. Because it is so pervasive, it has an influence on the population here.
But it doesn't play in the Middle East. With the exception of the royal families and other U.S. clients and hangers-on in the area, virtually the entire population is vehemently opposed to the war.
There, the war is seen plainly and simply as an imperialist invasion of Iraq by two "great" powers--"great" only in their violence, as V.I. Lenin once said--who have dominated the region for the past half-century and more.
It is universally viewed as a war not only against Iraq, but against all the Arab and other oppressed peoples of the Middle East.
WAR TO DOMINATE OIL WEALTH
As is well-known by every Iraqi schoolchild, Britain was the colonizer of Iraq from 1918 until the revolution of 1958, during which time it shared-out Iraq's oil wealth with U.S., French and Dutch oil companies. Iraq owned 0 percent of its petroleum reserves then.
Above all, the war is viewed as an attempt to "liberate" Iraq from control of its oil resources as well as its independence, and to restore its pre-1958 colonial status. Equally widespread is the perception that if successful, the U.S./British "coalition" would then move on to "restructure" the entire region along the same lines.
The militant and growing demonstrations throughout the Arab and Islamic world are fueled by this mass understanding of the real motivation behind the war on Iraq.
Protests have swept across Lebanon, Morocco, Iran, Yemen, Bahrain, Turkey and elsewhere. The repressive Egyptian and Jordanian regimes, both of which are heavily supported and dependent on Washington for their survival, have taken actions designed both to suppress and co-opt the wave of protest.
Angry demonstrations on March 22 in Cairo, capital of the largest of the Arab countries, were brutally attacked by the U.S.-supplied Egyptian police. Many organizers, including a progressive opposition member of parliament, were severely beaten and imprisoned. Accord ing to many news reports, the demonstrations were the most militant in recent times.
Given the intensity of the anger in the country, the government of President Hosni Mubarak couldn't completely stop the protests. A week later, on March 29, the authorities allowed the outlawed, right-wing Muslim Brotherhood to lead a march through Cairo, with the Brother hood agreeing to keep the protesters under control.
Egypt's second-largest newspaper, Al Akhbar, carried a typical headline on March 28: "A total war of genocide against Iraqis."
Other newspapers in the region, most of them generally considered moderate in their political views, carried similar headlines. "Monstrous martyrdom in Baghdad" read the front-page of Al-Dustur of Amman, Jordan, on March 29, the day after a U.S. missile killed at least 58 Iraqis in a Baghdad market.
"Yet another massacre by the coalition of invaders," was the main headline on Saudi Arabia's al-Riyadh newspaper. Summer Said, a journalist for the pro-Western Cairo Times, an English- language news magazine, told the March 30 Washington Post: "I thought at first, okay, maybe it isn't a war for oil. Maybe America does want to help. Now it's genocide to me. Is the American government trying to exterminate the Arabs?"
PROTESTS IN SYRIA AND PALESTINE
Among the largest and most militant demonstrations have taken place in Syria and the occupied Palestinian West Bank and Gaza. On March 28, tens of thousands of Palestinians marched in what was called "the biggest show of support ever for Iraq." In Hebron, marchers burned a mock coffin inscribed with the names of Arab leaders who have "betrayed Iraq." Similar demonstrations have taken place in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan.
Hundreds of Palestinians, mostly residents of these same camps, have traveled to Iraq to join the fight against the U.S./ British invaders. So too have at least 5,000 Iraqis who live outside the country, most of whom have made the dangerous trip overland by bus from Jordan and Syria.
Many more Iraqis have entered Iraq than have left as refugees, despite the intense U.S. bombing campaign. A refugee camp at Ruweished, Jordan, just across the border from Iraq, remains almost empty, despite the pre- war anticipation that it would be overwhelmed with fleeing Iraqis.
Syria has also seen its largest demonstrations in recent history. On March 26, following a U.S. missile strike on a Syrian bus inside Iraq that killed five people and wounded 15 more, some 200,000 marched in the capital, Damascus.
In recent days, Secretary of "Defense" Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell have threatened Syria, which shares a long border with Iraq, for alleg edly "meddling" in the war and supporting Iraq. Both Rumsfeld and Powell have also made menacing gestures toward Iran, another of Iraq's neighbors.
Syrian President Bashar Assad told the Lebanese paper As-Safir on March 27, "We will not wait until we become the next target."
The Syrian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on March 31: "Syria chooses to be with international official and popular consensus that says: 'No to the aggression against Iraq; no to the bombing of cities and the killing of people.' Syria also chose to side with the brotherly Iraqi people who are facing an illegitimate and unjustifiable invasion."
Powell's menacing words, in a speech to American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the leading pro-Israel lobbying group in the U.S., made it clear that "next target" may be exactly how Washington views Syria.
"Syria now faces a critical choice," said Powell on March 31. "Syria can continue direct support for terrorist groups and the dying regime of Saddam Hussein, or it can embark on a different and more hopeful course. ... Either way, Syria bears the responsibility for its choices, and for the consequences."
But Syria also had a warning for the United States, though one very different from Powell's threat.
Syrian Information Minister Adnan Omran, in a March 25 interview with the Toronto Star, predicted that the U.S. faced a future filled with resistance. "In Baghdad, they will find themselves facing daggers drawn from every corner. It will be a small-scale Vietnam. Small cuts will be made day after day and week after week until the Americans are gone.
"It is incredible that George Bush has been deceived by his advisers into believing he is poised for victory," Omran said.
"This advice is based on the most stupid calculations ever made of the social dynamic in Iraq."
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