Two Years After 9/11:
U.S. Imperialism in a Quicksand

It will be a colossal blunder for the U.S. to take preemptive actions against Iran and Syria and to widen the battlefield. If the U.S. does so, popular armed resistance will spread like wild fire in the Middle East and Central Asia and encourage armed revolution in South Asia. The U.S. will pay for its imperial overreach.

By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
General Consultant
International League of People’s Struggle
Posted by Bulatlat.com

By unleashing wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq and using weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. has committed far more monstrous acts of terrorism than those of Sept. 11, 2001 and has gained the condemnation of the broad masses of the people of the world.

U.S. military forces have massacred tens of thousands of Afghani and Iraqi civilians and destroyed the
social infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, water and power systems, office buildings and so on.
The U.S. has used the most lethal weapons of mass destruction, including various types of bombs and
ammunition tipped with depleted uranium. These kill civilians in large numbers immediately and long after hostilities.

U.S. imperialism and terrorism

There is clear evidence that intelligence agencies of the U.S. and some governments friendly to the U.S. had advance knowledge of the terrorist plot leading to 9/11. At least five of the 19 hijackers came under
surveillance by U.S. intelligence agents. But no effective counteractions were undertaken to foil the terrorist plot.

There is also clear evidence that long before 9/11 a cabal of “neo-conservatives” had launched the Project for a New American Century and had agitated for an opportunity for the U.S. to use overwhelming military force, demonstrate the “unchallengeable” superiority of U.S. power and gain control over the strategic resources of the world. The neo-conservative utopia to spread democracy and the free market under Pax Americana.

Top officials and covert operatives of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency have long collaborated
with Osama bin Laden and his followers since the anti-Soviet campaigns of the 1980s. In fact, some of
the 9/11 hijackers had pilot training in U.S. air bases. The Bush and bin Laden families are close friends and co-investors in the Carlyle Group. Filipinos are familiar with U.S. instigation of terrorist groups and activities. The U,S. Central Intelligence Agency was responsible for recruiting some Moros for jihad against Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the l980s and for forming the Abu Sayyaf terrorist gang in 1992. The CIA agent Michael Terrence Meiring and General Angelo Reyes have been connected to terrorist bombings in Mindanao in recent years.

The U.S. has used 9/11, like Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag, as the pretext for proclaiming a
“global war on terrorism,” for launching wars of aggression and whipping up repression on a global
scale. It has used the “terrorist” label to demonize countries asserting national independence, national
liberation movements and progressive leaders.

High material rewards for the U.S.

The material rewards for the U.S. in pursuing a phony war on terrorism have been high. With the conquest of Afghanistan, the U.S. has tightened its grip over sources of oil and gas in Central Asia and Caspian Sea. It can build the pipelines from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean via Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The U.S. is discouraging the construction of pipelines from Russia and Central Asia to China. It is
tightening its encirclement of both Russia and China even as the regimes in these large countries are still
friendly and pliant to U.S. monopoly interests. It is driven by imperialist greed to stay on in Afghanistan
and in the regions of Central and South Asia.

The U.S. has gotten far bigger material rewards from its conquest and occupation of Iraq. It has seized the second largest oil reserves in the world and has gained direct control over the entire OPEC more than
ever before. The U.S. dollar remains secure as the currency of oil transactions.

The U.S. has declared that it is out to reshape the entire Middle East politically and economically under
U.S. hegemony. The U.S. military bases in Iraq are at the heart of the entire region. The Palestinian and
Arab people are being told to accept the U.S.-made “road map” and other dictates of the U.S. and the
Israeli Zionists. The U.S. arrogantly demands that Syria and Iran submit completely to U.S. hegemony or else suffer the fate of Iraq in the hands of the U.S. U.S. strategists calculate that one way or the other they can soon take full control over Iran and Syria. They are also threatening the feudal oligarchies of Saudi Arabia and the emirates with the loss of their feudal rights if they do not yield further to U.S. economic and military demands.

U.S. imperialism in a quicksand

So far, Iraq is the biggest prize that the U.S. has gained under the pretext of warring on terrorism. The
reason is clear why the U.S. cannot walk away from Iraq so easily even if more and more US troops are
killed and injured. The U.S. cannot abandon the oilfields and all the reconstruction contracts that the U.S. companies have snatched up. Thus, it has veritably placed itself in a quicksand.

Just as the U.S. is hell-bent on occupying Iraq indefinitely, the Iraqi people are determined to wage
a people’s war of national liberation against the U.S. and its foreign and local puppets. It is now the turn
of the Iraqi people to use to their offensive advantage rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, mines, improvised bombs, mortars and the like. It is the turn of the U.S. to hold ground and fixed structures and to have so many troops on the defensive. Such U.S. high tech weapons as cruise missiles, airplanes and long columns of armour, which were effective in invading Iraq, are no longer as effective in holding ground and fixed positions. The U.S. troops are often like sitting ducks in a shooting gallery or they are in the most risky blind patrols amidst a hostile population.

As soon as 500 or 1,000 U.S. troops are killed in Iraq, there will certainly be a powerful demand from
the American people for the return home of the U.S. military forces. By that time the American people
shall have become fed up with the mounting casualties, military expenditures rising from the level of US$4 billion per month and the sick state of the U.S. economy. In April this year US$79 billion was appropriated for the military aggression. Now, Bush is asking for another US$87 billion.

Multilaterize the costs and monopolize the spoils

More and more people in the U.S. are disgusted that American lives are sacrificed and tax exemptions and public money are being used in the interest of U.S. big business. The tide has started to rise against the Bush regime and will rise faster as the U.S. stagnates with “jobless growth” and preparations for the 2004 U.S. elections heat up. Thus, the Bush regime is now engaged in some maneuvers to “multilateralise” the casualties and other costs of occupation but still for the U.S. to monopolize the spoils of war.

The U.S. can accelerate the passing of administrative duties from the Coalition Provisional Authority to the puppet Governing Council. But it does not do so because it does not completely trust its current Iraqi puppets. It is taking the time to securitize the oil assets of Iraq in favor of BP Amoco and other U.S. oil companies and preempt the oil income with all kinds of contracts with Halliburton, Bechtel and other U.S. companies in the name of reconstruction. It also wants to build a completely docile puppet military and police by training its officers in the U.S., Israel and Eastern Europe.

The U.S. wants the UN Security Council to legitimize the U.S. war of aggression and occupation of Iraq
under the cover of instituting multilateral cooperation to secure and facilitate the transfer of administrative responsibilities to the puppets. At the same time, the U.S. always asserts that it must retain leadership and control over the Coalition Provisional Authority and must have the supreme command over UN military forces.

The shamelessness of the U.S. knows no bounds. It unleashed aggression against Iraq because it was sure that this country had been weakened by twelve years of economic sanctions and had no weapons of mass destruction. It was simply interested in grabbing the oil wealth of Iraq and gaining various strategic advantages.

It violated the UN charter by going to war against Iraq without any prior act of aggression by the latter
and without the benefit of any reason approved by the U.S. Security Council. Now, it wants France, Germany, Russia and China to approve the U.S. war of aggression as legit after disregarding their demand for further UN weapons inspection to look for weapons of mass destruction and after invalidating contracts that these countries have made with Iraq.

There is trickery in the scheme of the U.S. to have a multilateral military force under the banner of the UN
but under the command of the U.S. This does not mean that the U.S. will make any big reduction of its
140,000 troops. These will be likely increased instead. The U.S. is hell bent on monopolizing the spoils and multilaterizing the casualties and other costs of the war. It is out to deceive the American people and the people of the world.

A new and higher level of resistance

In the months to come, we can expect more U.S. and British casualties by the hundreds and more oil
pipelines exploding. The American people will tend to conclude that Iraq is not paying enough for the costs of the occupation. They will be outraged by the sacrifice of American lives and public money on the altar of U.S. big business. They will demand U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

Many countries will demand that under the auspices of the UN and the Arab League the U.S. ought to yield power to the sovereign Iraqi people or to a council that is not an exclusive club of US puppets. The pretence of the U.S. at pushing the puppet Governing Council to draft a constitution, lay the ground for
elections and take a seat in the Arab League will unwittingly encourage Iraqi, Arab and Islamic demands for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and letting the oilfields remain under the ownership and use of the Iraqi people.

As the Iraqi people’s war of national liberation intensifies and the U.S. refuses to withdraw from Iraq, the mass protests and other forms of anti-imperialist resistance will rise to a new and higher level on a global scale. The U.S. can still doworse in the Middle East by expanding the battlefield to Syria and Iran. It has long been accusing these countries of aiding Iraq and demanding theirsubordination to U.S. dictates.

It is quite tempting to the U.S. to grab Iran becauseof its oil wealth and because it is already sandwiched
between the U.S.-controlled countries of Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. is also interested in control over Syria because this country is seen as an obstacle in the U.S.-made road map for Israel and Palestine. It is definitely to the interest of Iran and Syria to support the Iraqi people and to prevent the U.S. from consolidating its power in Iraq.

It will be a colossal blunder for the U.S. to take preemptive actions against Iran and Syria and to widen
the battlefield. If the U.S. does so, popular armed resistance will spread like wild fire in the Middle
East and Central Asia and encourage armed revolution in South Asia. The U.S. will pay for its imperial
overreach. The people in all regions of the world will see their opportunity to deliver their own blows on
the overstretched monster. Posted by Bulatlat.com

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