MIM Notes 153 January 1 1998

AMERIKA FIGHTS WAR OF STARVATION AGAINST IRAQI 
PEOPLE

by MC45

By continuing to insist on United Nations economic 
sanctions agaist Iraq and sustaining provocative 
spy-plane flights in Iraqi airspace, the United 
Snakes of Imperialism is making every effort to 
goad Iraq into taking the first shot and giving 
Amerika the excuse it craves to launch an all-out 
war of aggression against Iraq. MIM opposes this 
and all other forms of U.$. war against oppressed 
nations as the most brutal type of violence of 
imperialism against the oppressed.

U.N. chief Kofi Annan and members of the U.N. 
Security Council have tried to push a compromise of 
increasing the amount of oil Iraq can sell in 
exchange for war reparations, food and medical 
supplies. But Saddam Hussein has said that he does 
not wish to see the oil-for-food program continue 
because it is another excuse for continuing 
sanctions.(1) MIM agrees that continuing the food-
for-oil exchange is a sick ploy. This compromise 
offers the illusion that imperialism cares about 
the health of the Iraqi people while attempting to 
shield the U.$. from international criticism of its 
ongoing war of attrition against the masses.

Amerika is using its dispute with the Iraqi 
government to justify a policy of brutality and 
deprivation against the Iraqi people, and all anti-
imperialist Amerikans are duty-bound to oppose this 
action unconditionally.  MIM does not see the 
current Iraqi government as revolutionary, but we 
wholeheartedly support the right of the Iraqi 
people to national self-determination. U.$. 
imperialism in cooperation with U.N. 
collaborationists is today the principal barrier to 
the Iraqi people realizing national autonomy. 
Therefore it is our responsibility, working from 
within the heart of the imperialist beast, to 
oppose all U.$. military and economic intervention 
in Iraq. Through building opposition to Amerikan 
imperialism from within U.$. borders, we will make 
our most effective contribution to genuine 
liberation for the people of Iraq.


SANCTIONS AND OTHER IMPERIALIST METHODS


In a letter to the members of the U.N. Security 
Council on October 2, Ramsey Clark pointed out that 
by the U.N.'s own definitions this embargo is 
nothing more than genocide by trade policy. Clark 
writes:  "Genocide is defined in the Convention [on 
the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of 
Genocide], in part, as '... acts committed with the 
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national 
group as such' by means including 'Deliberately 
inflicting on the group conditions of life 
calculated to bring its physical destruction, in 
whole or in part.'"(2)

The mortality rate for Iraqi children under the age 
of five is now more than six times what it was in 
1989, all as a result of the Gulf War and 
subsequent embargo. Child mortality was close to 
600 in 1989 and had multiplied to more than 4,400 
in 1995. 750,000 Iraqi children died as a result of 
the embargo alone by the end of 1996.(3)

The language of sanctions, inspections and the need 
to secure U.$. interests in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait 
against the supposed threat of an Iraqi attack are 
all based on the imperialist assumption of 
Amerika's right to police Iraq. MIM continues to 
point out that it doesn't matter what Iraq has or 
hasn't done in Kuwait, and it doesn't matter what 
Iraq has or hasn't complied to in the name of 
subordinating itself to imperialist demands. No 
action on Iraq's part ever has or could justify 
Amerikan imperialist intervention into that 
country. MIM calls U.$. involvement in Iraq 
imperialist because it is rooted in the need of 
monopoly capital to eventually control people and 
resources all over the globe.

Even the relief programs which have been extended 
to Iraq in the past are based on imperialist 
relations. The food-for-oil program, through which 
Iraq has sold $2 billion of oil to multi-national 
corporations over each of the last two years is 
based on the supposed imperialist right to Iraq's 
natural resources.(1) MIM does not advocate that 
Persian Gulf countries be graciously permitted to 
keep all their oil and starve, but it is a mistake 
to see the current oil-for-food program as a great 
humanitarian gift. Even if we discount the 
extraction of resources, the program does not only 
serve to benefit the Iraqi people, as a large 
percentage of proceeds from Iraqi oil are going to 
pay war reparations to Kuwait.


DETERIORATING ECONOMIC SITUATION IN IRAQ


The embargo, in effect since 1991, has forced the 
Iraqi government to continue privatizing state 
industries. Privatization started during the war 
with Iran in the 1980s. During and immediately 
following the Gulf War the dinar, Iraq's basic 
currency, became almost valueless for exchange as 
prices rose drastically on the black market. In the 
past two years, the government has legalized black 
market monetary exchange in an effort to restrain 
the exchange rate. Now there are two black market 
exchanges -- the legal one on which the dinar is 
worth a fraction of its former value, and the 
illegal exchange on which the dinar is worth even 
less.(4, 5)

Another major effect of the privatization has been 
to amplify the wealth of the richest Iraqis while 
doing nothing to help the poor. Wealthy Iraqis who 
have capital to spend are buying government-sized 
businesses like hospitals, and becoming wealthier 
through this ownership. At the same time, the 
government is offering stocks in its operations to 
remaining workers so that a petty-bourgeois base of 
civil employees will remain on the job even while 
many educated petty bourgeois like lawyers and 
scientists are becoming small merchants, taxi 
drivers and other service workers because these 
jobs offer better pay than their trained 
professions.(5)


DIFFERENCES IN IMPERIALIST OPINION


A bright spot for Iraq in the inevitable rivalry 
among imperialists vying for exploitation rights to 
Iraqi oil is that Iraq is able to use this rivalry 
against the imperialists to some degree. Because of 
the following reasons, Amerika is hesitant to 
declare Iraq clean of illegal weapons and end the 
embargo.(6) The United Snakes has secure oil 
sources in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Amerika does 
not want to see Iraqi oil immediately on the market 
driving down prices overall. In an imperialist 
economy which creates no real value military build-
ups are important to keeping money flowing.

Amerika has attempted to get the U.N. security 
council to agree that Iraq has substantially 
violated the terms of the Gulf War ceasefire, which 
include inspections of Iraqi military facilities 
and weapons. If the U.N. officially agrees that 
Iraq has violated the ceasefire, Amerika can go 
ahead with a military attack on Iraq with 
international impunity.(6)

France and Russia are holding back on supporting 
renewed sanctions because both countries are 
interested in future deals with the Iraqi state oil 
company, INOC. INOC is in charge of all oil 
extraction in Iraq and a necessary partner in any 
ownership of Iraqi oil resources. At the end of 
November, Russia attempted to have Iraq declared 
free of nuclear weapons in a meeting of a special 
U.N. body. Iraq must be declared free of nuclear, 
chemical, biological and missile weapons as one of 
the conditions to lifting sanctions.(7) Both Russia 
and France have fewer oil holdings than U.$. 
imperialism and are anxious to gain access to 
additional oil.(8) If important U.N. members want 
badly enough to get their grubby hands on Iraq's 
oil, they may be able to override Amerika and take 
some of the heat of weapons inspections and 
sanctions off Iraq.


WHO DECIDES THE BRUTALITY OF A WEAPON?


Since Amerika can't see the weapons and since it 
needs a reason for war, it has accused Iraq of 
having more chemical and biological weapons now 
than it did when the Gulf War ended in the winter 
of 1991. Much talk centers on the destructive 
potential of these weapons, and on the implicit 
inhumanity of storing and building these 
weapons.(9) MIM reminds readers that it is 
important first to interrogate the U.$. for the 
same crimes of which it is accusing Iraq.

Amerikan policy towards bio-chemical weapons has 
been inconsistent and hypocritical ever since these 
imperialist snakes first refused to participate in 
the banning of chemical weapons in 1907. 
Demonstrating its hypocrisy even toward a single 
country and ruling party in different 
circumstances, the united snakes opposed U.N. 
action against Iraq in 1984 when Iraq was shown to 
have used mustard and nerve gases against Iranian 
troops.(10)Current warnings of the threat of 
biological weapons from Iraq continue to tell only 
the imperialist side of the story. In the Persian 
Gulf War, Amerika used such weapons as napalm and 
fuel-air explosives against both military and 
civilian targets, in violation of the Geneva 
Convention. A fuel-air explosive releases a 
"shockwave" whose "concussive force would surely 
rupture internal organs or eardrums of Iraqi 
soliders pinned down in their bunkers. This is not 
even to mention incineration and asphyxiation, as 
the fire storm of the bomb sucks all of the oxygen 
out of the area."(11)

Even after the war was over, Amerikan armed forces 
used both biological and chemical weapons on the 
"Highway of Death," a road from Kuwait to Iraq 
along which retreating Iraqi troops and 
Palestinian, Jordanian, and other war refugees 
travelled at the end of the 1991 war.(12) And 
within united snakes borders police and prison 
guards continue to use pepper spray -- the main 
ingredient of which was outlawed for use as a 
weapon by the United Nations Biological Weapons 
Convention in 1972 -- against demonstrations and 
crowds, arrestees and prisoners.(13)MIM calls on 
all anti-imperialist activists and on those 
currently focused on the human rights of Iraqi 
civilians to join us in our efforts to prevent this 
war. It is not enough to oppose sanctions and 
respect the decisions of the United Nations. We 
must recognize that no imperialist intervention in 
Iraq can be justified. Amerika's crimes at home and 
abroad are recounted consistently in the pages of 
MIM Notes. Join us in our work to fight the 
imperialist monster, and to expose and oppose all 
forms of oppression.


NOTES:
1. "Talk of the Nation," National Public Radio 5 
December, 1997
2. http://www.Al-Bushra.org/iraq/clark.htm.
3. "Embargo Factsheet," http://www.Al-
Bushra.org/temp/embargo.htm.
4. CIA World Factbook.
5. "Nation for Sale? In Iraq, War and Embargo have 
cleared the path for privatization," http://www.Al-
Bushra.org/temp/aziz.htm.
6. MIM Notes 152 15 December, 1997.
7. New York Times 22 November, 1997.
8. New York Times 22 October, 1997.
9. New York Times 2 May, 1997.
10. "The pot calling the kettle black: A history of 
bio-chemical weapons," http://www.Al-
Bushra.org/temp/grossman.htm.
11. Ramsey Clark and others, War Crimes: A Report 
on United States War Crimes Against Iraq. 
Maissoneuve Press (Washington, D.C.: 1992), p. 86.
12. Ibid, p. 18.
13. Michigan Daily 24 November, 1997 and MIM Notes 
#149 1 November, 1997.



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