[col. writ. 6/15/14] © ’14 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Lightning strikes. Those are the words that came to me as I witnessed the speed with which the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was rolling through northern Iraq, forcing government forces to flee.
The cities of Mosul, Samarah, Tikrit and others fell in a matter of days, with nothing but token resistance from the central government.
Photos appeared of long lines of men, unarmed and out of uniform, making haste in their flight from the seized cities.
Now, in shocked reactions to ISIS gains, U.S. politicians are clamoring for the return of thousands of U.S. soldiers, to buttress Iraq’s fast-fading forces. In essence, they are agitating for more war.
It’s a safe bet that this won’t happen, but the partisan call for war continues to sound.
One wonders: war for what? For a government that has made the lives of Iraq’s Sunnis a living hell? It is this very region that forms the springboard for ISIS power.
Since the fall of Saddam they have suffered the lion’s share of American and now, Iraqi state violence.
Did we think resistance would never have arisen?
Iraq may be on the road to civil war, but that probability arose the day Americans invaded, not the day they left.
The U.S. Army didn’t invade in pursuit of peace, but of petroleum. They split Iraq asunder and left it in tatters.
The Iraq invasion, a neoconservative dream that became a nightmare, was a disaster from Day One.
It remains so.
The war began with lies. It could not have ended otherwise.
The neocons, who created this mess, are now trying to restart the war anew.
On this, they must fail.
-© ’14 maj