More Excellence from Robert Fisk: "A Pitiful Occasion for the People "

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0629-13.htm

Published on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 by The Star / South Africa

A Pitiful Occasion for the People
by Robert Fisk

BEIRUT - So, in the end, America's enemies set the date.

The handover of "full sovereignty" was secretly brought forward so that the ex-CIA intelligence officer who is now premier of Iraq could avoid another bloody offensive by America's enemies.

What was supposed to be the most important date in Iraq's modern history was changed - like a birthday party, because it might rain on Wednesday.

Pitiful is the word that comes to mind.

Here we were, handing "full sovereignty" to the people of Iraq - "full", of course, providing we forget the 160,000 foreign soldiers whom Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has apparently asked to stay on in Iraq, "full" providing we forget the 3,000 US diplomats in Baghdad who will constitute the largest US embassy in the world.

And we never even told the Iraqi people we had changed the date.

Few, save of course for the Iraqis, understood the cruelest paradox of the event.


..more..
----------
**edit***The following article is CRUCIAL..
--
Robert Fisk contends that "Britain's 1917 occupation of Iraq holds uncanny parallels with today - and if we want to know what will happen there next, we need only turn to our history books..." Is the US repeating the British mistakes of the early twentieth century? According to Fisk: "for Iraq 1917, read Iraq 2003. For Iraq 1920, read Iraq 2004 or 2005." (Independent)

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/history/2004/0617iraq...

Iraq, 1917 (June 17, 2004)

They came as liberators but were met by fierce resistance outside Baghdad. Humiliating treatment of prisoners and heavy-handed action in Najaf and Fallujah further alienated the local population. A planned handover of power proved unworkable. Britain's 1917 occupation of Iraq holds uncanny parallels with today - and if we want to know what will happen there next, we need only turn to our history books...

On the eve of our "handover" of "full sovereignty" to Iraq, this is a story of tragedy and folly and of dark foreboding. It is about the past-made-present, and our ability to copy blindly and to the very letter the lies and follies of our ancestors. It is about that admonition of antiquity: that if we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. For Iraq 1917, read Iraq 2003. For Iraq 1920, read Iraq 2004 or 2005.

Yes, we are preparing to give "full sovereignty" to Iraq. That's also what the British falsely claimed more than 80 years ago. Come, then, and confront the looking glass of history, and see what America and Britain will do in the next 12 terrible months in Iraq.

Our story begins in March 1917 as 22-year-old Private 11072 Charles Dickens of the Cheshire Regiment peels a poster off a wall in the newly captured city of Baghdad. It is a turning point in his life. He has survived the hopeless Gallipoli campaign, attacking the Ottoman empire only 150 miles from its capital, Constantinople. He has then marched the length of Mesopotamia, fighting the Turks yet again for possession of the ancient caliphate, and enduring the grim battle for Baghdad. The British invasion army of 600,000 soldiers was led by Lieutenant-General Sir Stanley Maude, and the sheet of paper that caught Private Dickens's attention was Maude's official "Proclamation" to the people of Baghdad, printed in English and Arabic.

..more..

[Spazito]

1. Fisk makes some excellent points, as usual

Thanks for the link.

[rkc3]

2. Wait a second...

Is Fisk saying the Bush admin allowed the prospect of violence to change their plans?

My God, what kind of unpatriotic bastard is Fisk? We should never allow terrorism to impact elections or force us to change our plans in any way.

End of sarcasm (once again today).

[G_j]

3. somebody said

on Democray Now (didn't catch their name)
this was 'a brilliant move of desperation'

[burrowowl]

4. Bu$h made a blunder

"Few, save of course for the Iraqis, understood the cruelest paradox of the event.

For it was the new Iraqi Foreign Minister - should we not put his title, too, into quotation marks? - who chose to leak "bringing forward" of "sovereignty in Iraq" at the NATO summit in Turkey.

Thus was this date in modern Iraqi history announced not in Baghdad but in the capital of the former Ottoman empire which once ruled Iraq."

What is the maladministration thinking?

[KoKo]

5. They are cruel and and "insult" is their greatest weapon.

There's no other way to look at what they do. Their disregard for everyone and everything except their own timetables and view of what they want to accomplish for their Corporate and Personal interests is all that drives them.

They are drunk and maddened with the power they've stolen. It's amazing to see this. And how easily so many incurious Americans will follow folks like that and wave and applaud their actions. :grr:

[G_j]

6. thanks to the media

which is more than willing to perpetuate the ignorance.. :puke:

[G_j]

7. kick