The American Dilemma: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim
The United States is teaching the world a lesson: Never make
an alliance of any kind with the Americans. They will turn on you. The now-dead
Saddam Hussein discovered this elementary truth, too late. The Shi'ites of Iraq
are about to be schooled, as well.
The Americans have declared war on Shi'ite militias,
specifically, Muqtada al-Sadr's forces, concentrated in Baghdad.
That's what George Bush's current military "surge" is, supposedly, all about.
Al-Sadr's men are now the bad guys, who are to be disarmed or killed by the
Iraqi army - also, comprised mostly of Shi'ites. Remember: the Shi'ites, as a
religious group, were supposed to be the good guys when the U.S. invaded Iraq.
Sunnis bad - Shi'ites good. But then we should remember further back, to the
Iranian seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Jimmy Carter was president then.
That's when the Americans discovered there was such a thing as a
Shi'ite, having previously believed that all Muslims were alike, sharing some
common affinity for hashish. The U.S. media went Shi'ite crazy, warning that
the Shi'ites were the most dangerous Muslims imaginable, and must be stopped
from infecting the more "moderate" Muslim world with their weird
ant-Americanism.
"The Americans
keep surging into madness."
All this worked very well for Saddam Hussein, who got full
American backing for his war against Iran - that Shi'ite country. The more
Shi'ites Hussein killed, the better the Americans liked him. Of course,
Saddam's Iraqi army was also comprised mainly of Shi'ites, who are a majority
of Iraqis as well as Iranians.
Once the Iran-Iraq war was stalemated, the Americans put the
bad guy hat on Saddam's head, and declared Iraqi Shi'ites to be the good guys.
Of course, Iranian Shi'ites right next door remained bad guys, because they
lived in the Axis of Evil - a bad neighborhood.
The Iraqi Sunnis were now the worst Muslims in the world, so
dangerous they must be suppressed with hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S.
firepower. But it turned out that some of the Sunni's adversaries among the
Shi'ites, notably Muqtada al-Sadr, also
didn't want the Americans around. So, the bad Shi'ites have to be eliminated,
along with the bad Sunnis - maybe with some help from the Kurds, who are still
thought of as good guys by the Americans, but are definitely bad news for
America's allies, the Turks, who might just stage their own invasion of
northern Iraq, to get rid of the bad Kurds.
Of course, the Americans don't know or understand any of
these people: Sunnis, Shi'ites, Kurds, Turks, Arabs, Persians, or any other
people of the region. Nevertheless, they keep surging into madness. That's why
they will lose - but they will never, ever figure out why. For Black Agenda
Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
TO LISTEN to this Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford, click on the mic at left.
TO COMMENT ON THIS ITEM, click here to visit its page on the Black Agenda Blog.
The world has lost a champion of justice with the passing of Mario Joseph, a Haitian human rights lawyer who spent nearly three decades fighting for victims of state violence, cholera negligence, andâŚ
Monther Abed, the sole survivor of the Israeli attack on paramedics in Rafah, reveals the details of the crime in which 15 humanitarian workers were killed.
For 76 years, Gaza has been has been the defiant heart of Palestinian resistance. Today, as Israelâs genocidal war lays bare the brutal dead end of Zionism, Gazaâs struggle transcends geography,âŚ
Betar U.S., a far-right Zionist organization with ties to violent extremism, is quietly shaping Trump administration policy, compiling lists of pro-Palestine activists for deportation while openlyâŚ
The Dominican far-rightâs violent march on Friusa collapsed in disarray, exposing weakness in the movement as racist mobs failed to overrun a working-class community. However, the threat remains.âŚ
