from MIM NOTES 123              OCTOBER 1, 1996


U.$. ATTACKS TO INCREASE GULF OIL CONTROL


President Clinton ordered two sets of cruise 
missile strikes at Iraq at the beginning of 
September, intended to increase Amerikan military 
control over southern Iraq, and control over the 
Persian Gulf region in general. After the attacks, 
which were supposed to weaken Iraqi air defenses, 
Amerika expanded its zone of air-based occupation 
by about 100 miles north into Iraq, almost all the 
way to Baghdad.

The public reason for the attacks was to penalize 
the Iraqi government led by Saddam Hussein for its 
military strike into southern Kurdistan, which lies 
within Iraq's northern borders and within Amerika's 
imposed northern "no-fly" zone of air-based 
occupation. "When you abuse your people, or 
threaten your neighbors, you must pay a price," 
Clinton said.(1) Clinton was careful to direct the 
comment at Iraq only - but that did nothing to 
cover up the obvious hypocrisy of the Amerikan 
position.

Bourgeois analysts were quite willing to give the 
real reasons for the Amerikan attack because 
Amerikans would never support military intervention 
just to help an oppressed nation such as the Kurds. 
So Defense Secretary William Perry made a point of 
saying Iraq posed a "clear and present danger" to 
nearby countries and to "the flow of oil in the 
world." And the ABC News military expert talking 
heads admitted the strikes on air-defense systems 
were long-intended, with the Kurdistan incident 
providing a justification.(2)

Protecting the flow of oil is not really Amerika's 
goal, the goal is really to control that flow for 
Amerikan imperialist interests. Why else would the 
attacks have come just as Iraq was ready to 
implement a food-for-oil exchange that would have 
reintroduced Iraqi oil to the world market? That 
deal is now on hold.


AMERIKA IS NOT PROTECTING KURDS


The imperialists will not protect the oppressed 
nations of the world. Imperialism is the cause of 
the oppression and exploitation of these nations. 
The Kurdish people and all other oppressed peoples 
will only achieve self-determination through 
struggle against the imperialists. But even 
Clinton's high principle is revealed as meaningless 
rhetoric by  the large Turkish invasion of that 
same Kurdish region within Iraq , against the 
Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which is fighting for 
Kurdish liberation in Turkey.(3) This happened the 
same week Klinton ordered the air strike of Iraq. 

Turkey's bombing of Kurdish territory in Iraq 
doesn't offend Clinton's important humanitarian 
principles. The U.S. State Department said the 
Turkish incursion was OK, but Iraq's was not.(4) 
This is particularly revealing of the hypocrisy of 
the imperialists since Turkey crossed a recognized 
national border while Iraq acted within its own 
borders (a distinction which does not matter to MIM 
when we are talking about borders used to oppress 
people and enforce the imperialist world order.) In 
fact, Turkey has announced it will annex a strip of 
land on the Iraqi side of the border between the 
two countries as  a "security zone," like Israel 
has in Lebanon.(3)

This all fits the U.S. pattern of supporting 
Turkey's genocide of the Kurdish people, as in 
March 1995 when Turkey launched a major attack 
across Iraq's border. In that attack they struck 
mostly civilian targets, although they claimed to 
be after the "terrorist" PKK. The U.S. military 
cooperated by removing its patrolling aircraft from 
the area. As we wrote at the time: "The U.S. only 
cares for the Kurdish people when they are 
available for use as political pawns."(5)

The U.S. government portrays itself as the would-be 
agent of Kurdish liberation, valiantly trying to 
get the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the 
Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) together to oppose 
Iraq's government. In the latest dispute, the KDP 
has gone to Iraq for help against the PUK, which 
was getting help from Iran.

U.S. government sources have been telling the press 
that the KDP was working with the CIA to oppose the 
Iraqi government, and the KDP's invitation to Iraq 
to intervene against the PUK has undermined U.S. 
efforts there. One group getting money from the CIA 
is the Iraqi National Congress, which includes the 
KDP.(6) By some accounts the KDP's Massoud Barzani 
was the CIA's main contact there.(7)

When MIM covered the Kurdish uprising in 1991 in an 
interview with a representative of the KDP, we 
warned of the dangers of accepting aid from the 
imperialists,(8) but at the same time it's not for 
us to say who they should or should not accept help 
from as long as they do not compromise the armed 
struggle against imperialism. If they are 
successfully manipulating the opposing powers of 
Iraq and Amerika for the benefit of Kurdish 
liberation - which we do not have evidence of at 
the present - then more power to them. At the 
moment it is hard to see how Kurdish liberation has 
benefited from the latest developments.

Amerika has no problem with Iraq hampering Iran's 
attempts to gain influence within Iraq. Amerika 
does not want to see Iraq fall apart -- Amerika 
just wants to control Iraq itself. Still, 
government officials told the press that they were 
upset that Iraq disturbed their covert operations 
based in the north. Iraq's military assault on 
Erbil, in Kurdistan, undermined a CIA operation to 
overthrow the Iraqi government, Clinton 
administration officials told the New York Times. 
That operation had grown since January, when 
Clinton signed a secret order for increased CIA 
efforts, which went up to about $20 million this 
year from about $6 million the year before. The CIA 
operatives supposedly fled the country when Iraq 
attacked, leaving behind their Iraqi 
accomplices.(6)


OPPOSE AMERIKAN IMPERIALISM 


While Saddam Hussein is no friend of the oppressed, 
MIM opposes all attacks by Amerikan imperialism. 
The terror inflicted on the Kurds by Saddam Hussein 
is nothing new, back when Amerikan imperialism was 
funding Hussein he was attacking the Kurds and 
Amerika did not mind that this was done with 
Amerikan weapons. The suffering of the Kurdish 
people must end, but this end will be brought about 
by the people themselves, not by imperialists who 
pretend support for the oppressed when it serves 
political interests while at the same time 
attacking oppressed nations around the world.

In typical chauvinist reporting, Amerikan radio and 
press echoed the white house's joy that no Amerikan 
lives had been lost. No one tried to count the 
Iraqi lives lost in this "successful" air strike. 
The kind face Klinton tries to put on imperialism 
is just a cover for political maneuvering. The real 
message from this attack is that nations should not 
attempt to resist imperialist domination. But when 
imperialism means suffering and death for the 
majority of the world's people, another imperialist 
offensive in World War III is nothing new. This war 
is being fought in the Third World where the 
imperialists and their lackeys carry out constant 
low intensity warfare against the proletariat and 
peasants. These attacks don't make it into the news 
very often but they wreck constant genocide on the 
oppressed nations of the world. One more overt 
attack will not stop the oppressed from resisting 
imperialist domination and the majority of the 
world's people will eventually defeat the 
dictatorship by the minority and stop them from 
abusing all people.


NOTES:
1. ABC New, 9/3/96.
2. Nightline, 9/3/96.
3. The New York Times, 9/7/96, p. A6.
4. The New York Times, 9/6/96, p. A1.
5. MIM Notes 100, May 1995.
6. The New York Times, 9/7/9696, p. A1.
7. Jim Hoagland in the Washington Post, 9/6/96, p. 
A23.
8. MIM Notes 51, April 1991.