War against terror is spawning terror!
Jun 20, 2006
The killing two weeks ago of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian self-declared leader of al Qaeda in Iraq by American forces revealed just how little the world generally and America specifically really understand what is going on in Iraq.
OPIO OLOYA
Perspective of a Ugandan in Canada
The killing two weeks ago of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian self-declared leader of al Qaeda in Iraq by American forces revealed just how little the world generally and America specifically really understand what is going on in Iraq.
According to news reports, the announcement of Zarqawi’s death caused oil prices to drop below $70 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and London Futures Market. It should be noted for the record that prior to the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, prices of a barrel of crude oil were hanging around the $25-$30 level, but quickly rose three times to peak at $75 per barrel in April.
The momentary drop in oil prices was largely due to the thinking that Zarqawi’s death signalled the beginning of the end of the insurgency in Iraq and the security threats to Iraq’s northern oil pipelines capable of pumping over 300,000 barrels a day of crude oil into the world market.
As Iraq’s oil minister Hussain al-Shahristani put it, “The death of Zarqawi will lead to the reduction in the level of violence and terrorist attacks and this will definitely help to improve our production (of oil), particularly from the northern fields, and exports.â€
Unfortunately, the stock market was merely expressing the optimistic wistful thinking dominant in the west that sees the elimination of the so-called masterminds behind the Iraqi insurgency as crucial for the quick resolution of the conflict.
There were similar expressions of hope when Qusay and Uday Hussein were killed in July 2003, and five months later when their father, Saddam Hussein was captured near Tikrit in December 2003. Who can forget the picture of Paul Bremer, the American Administrator in Iraq pumping his fist in the air with the jubilant cry, “Ladies and gentlemen, we got him.†? Ironically, since his capture, Saddam Hussein has become a sideshow in the bloody battle for Iraq, completely ignored both by the insurgents and the Americans.
The latter realized much later that from the get-go, Hussein did not control the rebels fighting against the coalition forces. Yet, instead of learning from the mistake of putting all their effort on eliminating one man, Americans then locked their gun-barrels on al-Zarqawi, a brave, but not so bright former mujahideen who had seen some action against the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The incentive to catch the former associate of Osama bin Laden was based on very simplistic understanding that the war in Iraq is masterminded and coordinated by a single command structure under Zarqawi — get Zarqawi and you will break the back of the resistance which, in turn, will signal the end of the war in Iraq and the resumption of regular flow of Iraqi oil.
Over time, Zarqawi gained a larger than life notoriety that overshadowed what was really happening on the ground. He was associated with the blast in August 2003 that destroyed the UN headquarters in Baghdad and killed UN envoy Sérgio Vieira de Melo and several dozens others. He was also said to have been behind the killing a week later of the leading pro-US Shiite cleric and political leader, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim.
What’s more, he is believed to have personally beheaded American hostages, Nicholas Berg in April 2004 and Eugene Armstrong in September 2004.
However, while Zarqawi showed a flair for staging bloody news-grabbing murders, the real war was being fought on the streets of Iraqi streets by a resilient insurgency that has its own rhythm. Indeed, since the Jordanian died after an American war-plane dropped two 500-pound bombs on a safe house north of Baquba, the insurgency has simply picked up momentum. This past weekend a series of bomb attacks, including one inside a Shiite mosque left as many as 30 people dead.
The killings continued at a brisk pace on Monday and yesterday. Despite the news spin from Iraq, what is fuelling the war is more than the acumen of one or two men. Rather, the anger levelled against the Americans has allowed the resistance to explode like savanna fire with no end in sight. In a sense, even those who hitherto were on the sideline or at best ambivalent toward the occupation have thrown their lot to fight what is seen as American imperialism.
For the ordinary Iraqi whose livelihood has been turned upside down because of a totally unnecessary war, American troops on the ground have become the universal symbol of domination that beckons liberation. Therein lie the complexity of a conflict that evolved from the relatively amusing overthrow of a hated dictator to a vicious civil war where the enemy is anyone seen as directly or indirectly supporting the presence of American troops. In essence, within the span of three years, the unifying anger against the Saddam Hussein’s regime has been totally transformed into a burning hatred for the Americans.
The irony here is that all effort of goodwill by Americans aside, the so-called war against terror is generating terrorists all on its own.
For the people blowing themselves up in car bombs and taking up arms against the coalition forces, Americans must go. And for that, they do not need a Zarqawi to tell them what to do.
Opiyo.oloya @sympatico.ca
Perspective of a Ugandan in Canada
The killing two weeks ago of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian self-declared leader of al Qaeda in Iraq by American forces revealed just how little the world generally and America specifically really understand what is going on in Iraq.
According to news reports, the announcement of Zarqawi’s death caused oil prices to drop below $70 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and London Futures Market. It should be noted for the record that prior to the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, prices of a barrel of crude oil were hanging around the $25-$30 level, but quickly rose three times to peak at $75 per barrel in April.
The momentary drop in oil prices was largely due to the thinking that Zarqawi’s death signalled the beginning of the end of the insurgency in Iraq and the security threats to Iraq’s northern oil pipelines capable of pumping over 300,000 barrels a day of crude oil into the world market.
As Iraq’s oil minister Hussain al-Shahristani put it, “The death of Zarqawi will lead to the reduction in the level of violence and terrorist attacks and this will definitely help to improve our production (of oil), particularly from the northern fields, and exports.â€
Unfortunately, the stock market was merely expressing the optimistic wistful thinking dominant in the west that sees the elimination of the so-called masterminds behind the Iraqi insurgency as crucial for the quick resolution of the conflict.
There were similar expressions of hope when Qusay and Uday Hussein were killed in July 2003, and five months later when their father, Saddam Hussein was captured near Tikrit in December 2003. Who can forget the picture of Paul Bremer, the American Administrator in Iraq pumping his fist in the air with the jubilant cry, “Ladies and gentlemen, we got him.†? Ironically, since his capture, Saddam Hussein has become a sideshow in the bloody battle for Iraq, completely ignored both by the insurgents and the Americans.
The latter realized much later that from the get-go, Hussein did not control the rebels fighting against the coalition forces. Yet, instead of learning from the mistake of putting all their effort on eliminating one man, Americans then locked their gun-barrels on al-Zarqawi, a brave, but not so bright former mujahideen who had seen some action against the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The incentive to catch the former associate of Osama bin Laden was based on very simplistic understanding that the war in Iraq is masterminded and coordinated by a single command structure under Zarqawi — get Zarqawi and you will break the back of the resistance which, in turn, will signal the end of the war in Iraq and the resumption of regular flow of Iraqi oil.
Over time, Zarqawi gained a larger than life notoriety that overshadowed what was really happening on the ground. He was associated with the blast in August 2003 that destroyed the UN headquarters in Baghdad and killed UN envoy Sérgio Vieira de Melo and several dozens others. He was also said to have been behind the killing a week later of the leading pro-US Shiite cleric and political leader, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim.
What’s more, he is believed to have personally beheaded American hostages, Nicholas Berg in April 2004 and Eugene Armstrong in September 2004.
However, while Zarqawi showed a flair for staging bloody news-grabbing murders, the real war was being fought on the streets of Iraqi streets by a resilient insurgency that has its own rhythm. Indeed, since the Jordanian died after an American war-plane dropped two 500-pound bombs on a safe house north of Baquba, the insurgency has simply picked up momentum. This past weekend a series of bomb attacks, including one inside a Shiite mosque left as many as 30 people dead.
The killings continued at a brisk pace on Monday and yesterday. Despite the news spin from Iraq, what is fuelling the war is more than the acumen of one or two men. Rather, the anger levelled against the Americans has allowed the resistance to explode like savanna fire with no end in sight. In a sense, even those who hitherto were on the sideline or at best ambivalent toward the occupation have thrown their lot to fight what is seen as American imperialism.
For the ordinary Iraqi whose livelihood has been turned upside down because of a totally unnecessary war, American troops on the ground have become the universal symbol of domination that beckons liberation. Therein lie the complexity of a conflict that evolved from the relatively amusing overthrow of a hated dictator to a vicious civil war where the enemy is anyone seen as directly or indirectly supporting the presence of American troops. In essence, within the span of three years, the unifying anger against the Saddam Hussein’s regime has been totally transformed into a burning hatred for the Americans.
The irony here is that all effort of goodwill by Americans aside, the so-called war against terror is generating terrorists all on its own.
For the people blowing themselves up in car bombs and taking up arms against the coalition forces, Americans must go. And for that, they do not need a Zarqawi to tell them what to do.
Opiyo.oloya @sympatico.ca