OpEdNews - Article: IRAQ HAS RIGHT TO RESIST OUR OCCUPATION

"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience…therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring."~ Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950

I cringe when I hear George W Bush describe the Iraq insurgency as terrorists when, in reality, they are freedom fighters . They have every right to prevent our illegal, deceptive occupation and economic rape of their country.

Last weekend, hundreds of thousands of chanting Iraqi Shias burned and stamped on US flags at an anti-American rally called by "firebrand" cleric Moqtada Al Sadr on the fourth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein. http://snipurl.com/1fv30 ~ the flies are about to conquer the flypaper as Bush continues to expound patriotic blather.

Ten soldiers died over the weekend ~ Our days are numbered in Iraq and Bush is determined to stay the course inorder to keep the Oil and avoid the dreaded F word ~ Failure.

Get this, Bush only cares about vindicating himself and could care less about the needless deaths of both Iraqis and Americans during his surge toward catastrophe.

Iraq is not the central front of Bush's war on terror but instead an illegal affront of such mind numbing moral consequences that America may well bear the deep psychic wounds of this deceptive travesty for decades.

Who will pick up the bullhorn and call it what it is ~ An Illegal Occupation fueled by false patriotism and promoted by two unindicted criminals ~ Dick Cheney and George W Bush.

"Politically speaking, tribal nationalism [patriotism] always insists that its own people are surrounded by 'a world of enemies' - 'one against all' - and that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man." - Hannah Arendt, The Origins Of Totalitarianism p.227

The first to take up this cry was ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism), which took the following position, in response to a query on May 27, 2005

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8968.htm

"We support the right of self-determination in the struggle against imperialist domination, and believe the Iraqi people have the right to resist occupation by any means chosen. The right to resist occupation is a concept enshrined in international law. . . . This is not a matter of political or ideological affinity. Nor is it an issue of the tactics of war --all of which are ugly. It boils down to this simple equation: On the one side are all the forces fighting a war against colonialism and occupation, and on the other side are the colonialists, neo-colonialists and their Iraqi agents. In that struggle we take an unambiguous position opposing the colonizers. To do otherwise would be to put entirely secondary issues --ideology, war tactics, etc. --at the forefront, while ignoring the core issue of colonialism in Iraq and elsewhere. Moreover, since we are a U.S. antiwar movement, and it is our country that has invaded Iraq, we are obligated to be crystal clear on this issue."

And that is how simple it is ~ if you are anti-war you must be crystal clear that you are also anti-occupation and that the so called 'terrorists' are, in actuality, freedom fighters who are more than justified in resisting and defending their country against our illegal colonialism, occupation and stage - managed ' pseudo ' Democracy.

To do anything less would be cowardly.

Allen L Roland http://blogs.salom.com/0002255/2007/04/10.html

Dauntless OpEd columnist Allen L Roland is available for comments & interviews. ( allen@allenroland.com )

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