U.S. War in Iraq
The Punishment of Abu Hishma
Revolutionary Worker #1223, December 21, 2003, posted at
rwor.org
"With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can
convince these people that we are here to help them."
Lt. Col. Nathan SassamanU.S.
battalion commander, Abu Hishma New York Times , Dec. 6
The U.S. occupation authorities believed that someone in the Iraqi village of Abu Hishma
was resisting.
In November, U.S. troops claimed they came under mortar fire from the orchards surrounding this
town of 7,000 people. Convoys of occupying troops ran into improvised land mines on nearby roads. A few
miles from town, rifle fire hit the passing U.S. vehicles. Then on November 17, the resistance fighters
succeeded in killing a U.S. soldier with a grenade.
The occupation authorities responded with massive collective punishment.
First they sent a jet to drop a 500-pound bomb on the village. The whole landscape quaked as one
home instantly became a crater.
Then heavily armed soldiers came to round up the village elders--taking away the mayor, police
chief, and most of the town council.
Then, in early December, a U.S. force literally turned Abu Hishma into a prison camp. Five miles of
razor wire now completely surround the village. All adult men must now carry photo identification cards--
printed in English.
The village is "locked down" 15 hours a day. People can no longer go to their mosque
for morning and evening prayers. They cannot get to the gas station in time to avoid curfew each night. To
travel or visit their fields, the inhabitants must line up at the only gate and display their photo ID to the
soldiers. The U.S. commander announced the villagers would live like this until they turned over any
resistance fighters to the soldiers.
"This is absolutely humiliating," said Yasin Mustafa, the town's grade school teacher.
"We are like birds in a cage."
The sign on the razor wire says: "This fence is here for your protection. Do not approach or try
to cross, or you will be shot."
Punishing the People
All across central Iraq, in both villages and cities, collective punishments have been
going on in a U.S. offensive called "Operation Iron Hammer."
Money has flooded in to purchase networks of informants. U.S. forces have then arrested and
interrogated thousands of adult men based on the charges of collaborators. People are being imprisoned
merely for being relatives of suspected resisters.
The Dallas Morning News (Dec. 9) described how the Muslim cleric Abdul Qader was
arrested by U.S. soldiers for criticizing the occupation in Friday sermons. After midnight, he was hooded
and taken away for interrogations, beaten until one retina detached, and then released.
On December 2, a U.S. strike force entered the town of Hawija. Handcuffed men had the words
"black list" written on the back of their necks, along with identifying numbers for use by
interrogators. The U.S. officials admitted that these men were not themselves known to be active in the
resistance.
Troops have rousted whole families from their homes without warning or discussion, and called in
jets--leaving people stunned, looking into the crater. U.S. forces have destroyed irrigation works and
bulldozed groves of orange, lemon and date trees.
These are all tactics employed by the Israeli punishment operations that target Palestinian
communities in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Logic ofImperialist Conquest
"You have to understand the Arab mind. The only thing they
understand is force -- force, pride and saving face."
Capt. Todd Brown, company
commander with Fourth Infantry Divisionoutside the gate of Abu Hishma
"Experience continues to teach us many lessons, and we continue to
evaluate and address those lessons, embedding and incorporating them appropriately into our concepts,
doctrine and training. For example, we recently traveled to Israel to glean lessons learned from their
counterterrorist operations in urban areas."
Brig. Gen. Michael A. VaneDeputy
Chief of Stafffor Doctrine Concepts & Strategy Army magazine, July 2003
"Get 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."
Unofficial motto ofU.S. officer
corps in Vietnam
Lt. General Sanchez justified collective punishment at a press conference: "I guess
what we need to do is go back to the laws of war and the Geneva Convention and all of those issues that
define when a structure ceases to be what it is claimed to be and becomes a military target. We've got to
remember that we're in a low-intensity conflict where the laws of war still apply."
Translated into human-speak: In this counterinsurgency, the people themselves, their
livelihoods and homes are seen as legitimate military targets by the U.S. command.
Much of the U.S. ruling class (including both the White House and the Democratic presidential field)
talks about their hope of bringing the troops of other countries onto the frontlines in Iraq: Bring in
large numbers of Turkish or Pakistani troops! Or NATO and UN troops, and especially some new pro-
American Iraqi puppet army. Replace some of the U.S. forces, they say, while (of course) keeping any
"multilateral force" under unilateral U.S. command, serving the same imperialist U.S.
goals.
However, the Bush administration (and Democrats like Gen. Wesley Clark) all insist that replacing
U.S. forces can't happen before Iraq is pacified. What country will really join this occupation
before "pacification" is complete? In other words, the only "exit strategy"
the imperialists see here is victory over the Iraqi resistance.
And the only force really available to do that is the U.S. forces themselves. This was underscored
this week when almost half of the new U.S.-trained Iraqi army walked out on December 10--complaining
about awful conditions and fear of the Iraqi resistance.
The U.S. government and military increasingly admit that this dirty new war will require ruthless
brutality. But (in classic colonialist logic) they insist it is the nature and culture of the people that force
them to commit atrocities.
"Life is cheap in the Orient," American war makers once claimed in Vietnam, as
they coldly killed millions of people--all in the name of freedom, of course.
In a chilling passage, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote (Nov. 5):
"What will happen to the national mood when the news programs start broadcasting images of the
brutal measures our own troops will have to adopt? Inevitably, there will be atrocities that will cause many
good-hearted people to defect from the cause. They will be tempted to have us retreat into the paradise of
our own innocence. Somehow, over the next six months.the president will have to remind us that we live
in a fallen world, that we have to take morally hazardous action if we are to defeat the killers who confront
us."
In other words, the people of the U.S. are now expected to embrace a mounting war of
brutality in Iraq (and Afghanistan), all in the name of freedom, of course.
The truth is: "Operation Iron Hammer" follows the classic anti-people logic
of imperialist counterinsurgency. Unable to identity the resistance fighters, the U.S. command intends to
"drain the sea to catch the fish"--brutalize the people and treat anyone who doesn't collaborate
as an enemy.
* * * * *
Oppressed people all over the world have seen these operations and tactics before.
We have lived through the police clampdowns in housing projects--where even relatives from
outside your building are forbidden to visit. We have seen police sweeps that target Black and Latino youth
and pack names into vast "gang" databases. We have seen how cops put guns to the heads of
kids or plant "evidence" on them, and order them to provide information on their friends.
We remember the collective punishments of Nazi occupation during World War 2 and we have never
forgotten the walling in of the Warsaw Jewish ghetto, when the inhabitants didn't know what to expect next
from the enemy troops and tanks.
We see, over and over, the daily strangulation and brutalization of Palestinian villages in the West
Bank by a heavily armed enemy who means the people ill.
So when we hear about these collective punishments in Iraq, many of us can see that the power of
our own oppressors is being unleashed against our Iraqi sisters and brothers--in an unjust war to dominate
and suppress.
The commander-in-chief in Washington, DC says, "You are with us or against us." That
is a choice forced on the people of Iraq at gunpoint. And it faces all of us, across the world.
This article is posted in English and Spanish on
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