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State of the Zionist Empire Three Years After the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq  

By Hassan A El-Njajjar

Al-Jazeerah, March 20, 2006

Three years ago, on March 19, 2003,  US President George Bush ordered US forces to invade and occupy Iraq using two pretexts. He claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, implying that it would threaten the US with them. He also claimed that Iraq had links with Alqaeda organization, which attacked the US in September 11, 2001, in an attempt to end the US military presence in Saudi Arabia. Later, a bipartisan Committee found no bases for these two pretexts. The Committee concluded that Iraq neither had weapons of mass destruction nor had any links with Alqaeda.

Then, why did the US invade and occupy Iraq?

Researchers have found that the Zionist rulers of the American Empire had expressed their intention to invade Iraq during the 1990s. This was expressed in a blueprint written by Wolfowitz, Perle, and Feith well before they came to power. However, in my book about the 1991 Gulf War "The Gulf War: Overreaction & Excessiveness" (which was rejected by about 50 US publishers), I argued that leaders of the Zionist Empire considered Iraq as a threat to be dealt with as far back as 1988. Back then, the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his foreign minister Shimon Peres pronounced the first public announcement about targeting Iraq, as it came out stronger from the eight-year Iran-Iraq War.

Right away, Zionist ideologues and propagandists in the US academia, think tanks, corporate media, and government started preparing the population for not only targeting Iraq, but also for replacing the fallen Communism with the new "villain" of Islamism. A new cold war was badly needed to replace the first one, which ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the late 1980s.

These Cold War II entrepreneurs included Bernard Lewis and Huntington in the academia, researchers of the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy (WINEP), researchers and authors publishing in Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, media demagogues like Steve Emerson and Danial Pipes, and an army of Israel-firsters in the corporate media of the Empire.

The pro-Israel officials in the Bush Sr. administration (Brent Scowcroft, Dennis Ross, Bob Kimmit, and Richard Haass) got the Rabin-Peres message and did everything in their power to make sure that the 1991 Gulf War would happen. They encouraged Kuwait to challenge Iraq and assured Iraq that the US had no business to interfere in the inter-Arab disputes, which was a green light for Saddam to invade Kuwait and thus to fall in their trap.

They refused all peace initiatives to allow Iraqi forces to withdraw from Kuwait without war. The objective was to destroy the Iraqi economic, military, and infrastructure capabilities. The 1991 Gulf War resulted in killing about 150,000 Iraqis and the destruction of Iraq, ending it as a potential threat to Israel.

Despite this great service Bush Sr. did to Israel, he was fired by defeating him in the 1992 election. He made a terrible mistake when he could not understand the power of the Zionists in the media and government. He refused to give Shamir the loan guarantees he requested to expand illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian occupied territories.

The pro-Israel foreign policy team in the Clinton administration upheld the regime of sanctions imposed on Iraq by the Bush Sr. administration, in order to soften the country for the planned future invasion and occupation. Amazingly enough, Dennis Ross and William Cohen were in the team though they were Republicans. The team also included Sandy Burger and Madeleine Albright, who will be remembered in history for her infamous statement that the death of half a million Iraqi children as a result of sanctions was worth it.

In brief, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has nothing to do with the pretexts of weapons of mass destruction and links with Alqaeda. It also has nothing to do with Bush Jr. or his administration per se. It has everything to do with the Zionist Empire and its plans of world domination. The US and American presidents have been used as tools to achieve the objectives of this Empire.

In case we're joined by new readers who still haven't heard of the terminology or the subject, they can research the US military bases around the world. In one count, these reached 700 in 156 countries. If this is not an Empire, what is it? I suggest that they start with the following link for that endeavor:  http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/20040910_2004BaseStructureReport.pdf

Another direction is researching the US military spending, which exceeds the military spending of most industrialized nations combined. The US, as a nation-state does not need a fraction of these amounts of military spending. The only explanation is that these amounts serve as the military budget of an Empire, not a nation-state. I suggest that they start with the following link for this subject: http://www.csbaonline.org/4Publications/Archive/R.20050517.FY06Bud/R.20050517.FY06Bud.pdf

The third and most decisive evidence about how the US, as a nation-state exploited and actually expended by the Zionist Empire, is studying the US national debt, which has reached $8.3 trillion. It doesn't need a rocket scientist to associate the US military spending with the US national debt. As a start, I suggest the following link for studying this aspect: http://aljazeerah.info/Special%20Reports/Different%20special%20reports/US%20National%20

Debt.htm

But why calling it a Zionist Empire? Why not a US Empire?

The answer simply is that the US nation-state is harmed by the very characteristics of the Empire: The huge military spending, the large number of military bases abroad, and the unprecedented national debt. For an in depth analysis, see my article: Zionism, the highest stage of imperialism Actually, the US has no foreign policy of its own, as a nation-state. Everything it does abroad serves Israel, the military industrial complex, and multinational oil companies. Moreover, successive wars since WWII made the US hated by the nations it fought wars against, and there have been many of them. Wherever, President Bush shows up in the world (like in his last trip), he faces angry demonstrations protesting his presence and American foreign policy, particularly wars. Hundreds of billions of dollars in trade deficits every year indicate among other things a boycott of US products. American civilian industries are apparent victims of the Empire. Thus, though Americans are forced to finance the Empire and supply it with the military equipment and the soldiers it needs to impose its will on other nations, it is not a US Empire. It is harmful to the US and it is harmful to the American people.

At the same time, the US foreign policy is mainly a protection and execution of Israeli policies in the Middle East and the world. Successive US governments never objected to anything Israeli governments said or did. One historical exception was President Eizenhower, when he ordered the Israeli government to withdraw from Gaza Strip and Sinai in 1956, following the Israeli occupation of these Arab territories during the Anglo-French invasion of the Suez Canal area. Successive US administrations, Republican and Democrat alike, slavishly adhere to Israeli policies that aim at the subjugation of Arabs and Muslims generally, and the Palestinian people in particular. Even the present stand off against Iran, it aims ultimately at maintaining the Israeli nuclear hegemonic and monopolistic status in the Middle East.

Israel and whatever its government says or does is sacred for American politicians, military leaders, and journalists. None of them dares to criticize the Israeli government or even Israeli politicians. If they do not express loyalty publicly, they are dead silent towards Israeli daily atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Both US political parties, Republicans and Democrats alike, compete to serve Israel, express loyalty to it, and to its policy. The best example of showing such loyalty is attending the annual convention of the Israel-lobbying organization, AIPAC. The vast majority of US politicians in Congress and in the executive branch of the federal government attend the AIPAC annual conference and maintain a loyal relationship to it through adopting every initiative it produces, usually in service of Israeli policies.

The two main US political parties are so much controlled by politicians who are loyal to Israel first that the contest between them has become a contest between Christian Zionists in the Republican Party and Jewish Zionists in the Democratic Party. In the 2004 presidential election, the Democratic contenders were all Jewish or Jewish related. Lieberman and Clark are Jewish openly, John Kerry is Jewish by descent as his parents and his brother are Jewish, and Howard Dean is married to a Jewish woman.

On the Republican side, Christian Zionists contend that their loyalty to Israel is due to the promise of God to Jews to give them the Holy Land. Aside from the fallacy of adopting a foreign policy on basis of religion, this is an erroneous reading of the Bible. God never promised the Holy Land to Jews. Rather, the Promise was to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Palestinian people represent these descendants more than anybody else in the world today. They followed Jesus Christ, then most of them accepted Islam. Majority of Jews, particularly those of Eastern European origins have no roots in the Middle East and are not descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Thus, the biggest problem of Christian Zionists is confusing Jews for descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For more details, see my article: The Promised Land

Since Henry Kissinger, American foreign policy is executed mainly by Jewish officials. Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Dennis Ross, Richard Haass, Albright, Sandy Burger, William Cohen, Abrams, Kurtzer, Bremer, Sataloff, to name some. As a consequence, the US foreign policy is mainly a body of rules designed to support Israeli policies. This goes contrary to the principle of checks and balances in government. Actually, there have to be Muslim and Arab Americans appointed as a counter-balance for Jewish Americans in every government department or agency if this principle is to be upheld. There are about 8-10 million Muslims and two million Arab Americans in the US. Where are they in government? How many members of Congress have Arabs and Muslims in their staff to counter-balance the influence of their Jewish staff? Where are Arab and Muslim journalists in the corporate media? Actually, the lack of Arab Americans and Muslim Americans in positions of decision making in the executive branch, Congress, and the media contributes to this blind followship to Israeli policies.

So, what has the US invasion and occupation of Iraq done to the US, Iraq, the Middle East, and the world?

Concerning the US, the war expanded the police state through expanding the Patriot Act, increased the military spending to unprecedented levels in human history, and sank the country so deep in debt to the verge of economic collapse.

The US invasion and occupation of Iraq has destroyed the Iraqi state and changed Iraq from the most progressive and secular Arab state into a disintegrating society, failing state, and fighting ethnic factions in a bitter civil war.

With regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Bush hands-off policy and the invasion and occupation of Iraq gave support to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. The Israeli occupation government expanded illegal settlements, re-invaded Palestinian cities and villages, imprisoned President Arafat, and adopted a blunt assassination policy against Palestinian activists. The Palestinian-Israeli peace process is gone with the wind, as the American Civil War movie title says. Even after Hamas had won elections in the most free and fair elections in the world, which is showing its willingness to make peace with Israel, negative reactions from the Israeli and US governments may kill this last hope for peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

The Bush administration launched attacks all over the world against Islamic groups and Muslim individuals in a way that people everywhere understood that the US is fighting Islam and Muslims. Battles had been fought not only in the Middle East but also in North Africa, Yemen, Pakistan, and as far east as the Philippines. US prisons have spread all over the world, with abducted Muslims being transferred from one country to another in a way that not only embarrassed many nations but also showed them as losing their sovereignty over their territory.

The world has been horrified when leaked photos and videos showed the brutality and torture of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Gharib, Guantanamo, and Afghanis held in privately contracted prisons in Kabul. Then came a wave of photos designed to provoke emotional reactions from Muslims all over the world, such as desecration of the Holy Qur'an in Guantanamo Prison, then the anti-Islamic cartoons in Denmark, which were reprinted afterwards by European and US publications. To what level of immorality are we degenerating and for what?

But the most damage has been done to the UN, as the world body that brings nations together not only for peaceful cooperation in all aspects of life, but also for resolving international disputes peacefully. The US has shielded Israel from any pressure to observe the UN resolutions that give the Palestinians their inalienable rights, such as their right for freedom, self-determination, establishing their state, repatriation in their ancestral homeland, and compensation for the losses they suffered. Not only the US has encouraged Israel to continue ignoring the UN resolutions 181, 194, 242, and 338 but it also ignored the UN Security Council and invaded Iraq against the will of the international body. Humanity will need a long time to overcome this US contempt for the UN.

What about September 11, 2001 Attacks?

Proponents of the permanent-war strategy to control the world often cite the September 11 attacks as the cause of the pre-emptive war on Iraq and the "war on terror" in general. The answer to this claim is simple: Let's list down events in a historical chronology. Quickly, we'll discover that history did not start on September 11, 2001. Proponents of the Empire went to war against Iraq in 1991. But after evicting Iraqis from Kuwait, they did not withdraw US forces from the Arabian Peninsula generally, and from Saudi Arabia in particular. This led to Alqaeda attacks against the US interests and personnel in Saudi Arabia (Al-Khober), then in Africa (the Embassies), and finally against the New York Trade Center in the 1990s. When all of these attacks did not convince the Clinton administration to withdraw US forces from Arabia, then Alqaeda attacked the US in September 11, 2001. The link was very obvious to the extent that the Bush administration withdrew US forces from Saudi Arabia directly after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Had this happened earlier, September 11 attacks could have been avoided.

So, what's the state of the Zionist Empire, right now?

The state of the Zionist Empire is bad and its crown jewel, the United States, is on the verge of financial collapse. The rulers of the Empire are more like Cold War dinosaur warriors than 21st century statesmen who care about their people and the world they are living in.

What's the solution?

The solution is the immediate US withdrawal from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Arabian Peninsula, as a first step to be followed by closing all US military bases abroad. The US government should correct its invasion mistake by going back to the UN asking for international forces to replace US forces over there. The longer the US forces stay in Iraq, the longer the Civil War, the harder the suffering of the Iraqi people, and the more American casualties.

More important is that the Israeli occupation government has to be bluntly told by the United States government that it has to withdraw from the Arab occupied territories (Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese territories). It has to go back to the 1967 borders. The Israeli state should adopt a constitution that defines its citizens and its borders. Moreover, it has to give up its nuclear arsenal and live peacefully with its neighbors. Israelis have to relinquish their dream of a greater Israel that extends from the Nile to the Euphrates, which is causing all this trouble the world over. Peace can be achieved by the Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories and the Israeli recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people. The Zionist Empire is harming everybody in the Middle East. It hasn't brought peace to the Israelis and their neighbors.

Where do we go from here?

The American republic is in real danger unless the American people wake up and take action. The only hope is voting for candidates who put America first before the Empire. People should vote for politicians who pledge to put America first and pledge to stop supporting wars against the world. Candidates running for Congress, whether Republicans or Democrats, should pledge to do that. Otherwise, they should be voted out of office. More important is that the third parties should get together in an umbrella organization or coalition that pledges to put America first and that opposes military adventures overseas. We need to bring home as soon as possible not only our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan but also from Germany, Japan, and everywhere. We don't need 700 military bases in 156 countries. This is draining our financial, economic, and human resources and making us the enemy of so many nations.

We need to correct our course as soon as possible before it is too late. We still remember the collapse of the Soviet Union and the breaking away of its republics. We still remember the humiliation the Russians felt when they couldn't even bring home their troops from east Germany because they didn't have the resource to do so.

Let's end the Empire and keep the United States, before it's too late and we lose both.

Let's stop our politicians' humiliating loyalty to Israel.

Let's stop all aid to the Israeli occupation government until it withdraws from the Palestinian occupied territories and leave the Palestinian people alone.

Let's put America first, before the Zionist Empire.

 

Dr. Hassan A El-Najjar is the Editor of aljazeerah.info.

 
Earth, a planet hungry for peace

 Apartheid Wall

   
The Israeli Land-Grab Apartheid Wall built inside the Palestinian territories, here separating Abu Dis from occupied East Jerusalem. (IPC, 7/4/04).

 

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03).

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah's.

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