The Baathist

SM: I was in southern Baghdad at the Rasheed military base, inside the hospital. On April 6th, the American troops reached us after two weeks of heavy bombardment. Any army in the world is built on the concept of command and control, and all of sudden we lost all communications with any sort of central command. I was left with seven or eight junior officers until the end, and they were waiting for my orders, and I finally dismissed them to their homes.

 

SM: In the face of such ferocious technology, our plan was to slow the progress of the American forces as much as possible and inflict as much damage as we can until we drag them to the swamp of the city. In the streets of Baghdad is where the Iraqi army merges with the civil resistance and the party organisations, which after the 1998 has evolved semi-military organisations, in the battle for the liberation of the homeland. Unfortunately, that plan was not devised with a clear understanding of the social structure of the Iraqi people at that stage. 

I hope what I am going to say is not misunderstood from a sectarian perspective, but the structure of the Iraqi army, as a result of demographics and interests, was mainly built from people who lived in the what is now called the Sunni areas. The Shiite demographic was for some reason always reluctant to merge into the army. In my own assumption, the pyramid structure of the Shiite authority figures –  similar to the Catholic church – collides with the concept of the “Arab national state”. Even if we surrender to the fact that the head of that pyramid is the sole leader of the Shiite masses (Willayat al-Faqih), the historic question is why does this leader have to be a Persian? And why can’t there be an Arab leadership in that position. The Shiite coalition –the leadership, I mean, not the simple individual – stood against the defence plan, and based on some mysterious order the structure of the military units we were relying on surprisingly disappeared. I think there may have been Iranian influence on the American side.

 

SM: In June of 2003, I received a message that the head of the American medical division would like to meet with some of the medical staff of the Iraqi army, and I returned to the Rasheed base, which used to be an enormous medical establishment. I was horribly surprised to see it completely destroyed; the American troops that were responsible of securing that area obviously allowed the mobs to loot and rob the institute. This was not simple theft, but the result of years of hatred and resentment against Iraq and any of its monumental institutions. Most of these mobs came from outside along with the American tanks, and it was obvious that the it was instructed by the enemies of Iraq and protected by the American army. There was an American tank guarding the hospital, why didn’t it protect it? On the contrary, right in front of the American tank and soldiers, there were a group of men still collecting whatever is left from the ruins of the hospital. Fifteen days after the occupation, I went to see to the Faculty of Pharmacy at Baghdad University. The Faculty of Pharmacy was established in 1938 and graduated generations of regional leaders in the field. I found it not just looted, but completely burnt down. Someone went into the chemical depots in the basement of the building and could not move the bulky containers, so they just burned them, which caused a massive explosion. 

Another incident that I clearly recall was when I was driving to my uncle’s house. Two men stepped outside of their cars and began arguing, and all of a sudden one of them drew a weapon from his car and shot the other guy. Just metres away an American tank was stationed right next to a mosque and I ran out of my car screaming at him to do something. His answer was “We are not the police”. I argued with him that according to the UN conventions and as an occupation force he is responsible, but he simply ducked into his tank. That incident would give you a limited angle on the objectives of the occupation.

 

SM: Iraq was not the target. The target was the whole pan-Arab national state, with the objective of putting an end to the whole concept of a strong and free nation that could contribute to humanity. The only alternative offered is the sectarian ever-conflicting miniature states, built on medieval concepts of sects and religions that will divide the people around it. Iraq was the strongest link in this chain, and it was regarded as the Arab Prussia – where Prussia was the base of the German unity and Bismarck. How else would you explain the removal of the three stars from the Iraqi flag other than trying to erase the memory of the Syria-Egypt-Iraq unity project? And this concept is not limited to Iraq; Israel will always be a small state terrified by the demographic bomb surrounding it. In order for it to feel secured it has to be surrounded by small, weak colonies built under the same outdated concepts Israel itself is built on. It all depends on how wide Israel’s security diameter is going to be.

 

 

SM: Honestly, you can count me among the pessimists. This is the American century. And the American plan and expansion is going to continue at least for the next 50 years, or until traditional energy sources expire. But as long as we are in the oil era, American expansion will continue. The American president recently toured Africa, which was considered a European influence area, with plans for an American Central Command in mid-Africa. The world is uni-polar and there is no interest in taking a stance against the United States. I see the situation as a moral tragedy, very similar to 1938 when Hitler was swallowing country after country while governments all over Europe were watching until they eventually signed the disgraceful Munich agreement. We are witnessing a new Roman empire. The imperialist ideology is at its peak while all the other ideologies are regressing – not because these ideologies are wrong;, and anyone who claims that the regression of socialist ideology is a proof of its weakness is mistaken. Maybe the tools of application were not on-par with the theory, but the regression of socialism is the biggest moral shock humanity has suffered since the crucification of Jesus.  

 

Fot the full version of this article, see NOX20.