The Legacy of U.S. Imperialism

Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Tied to Legacy of U.S. Imperialism
By Michael Hoffman

The people of Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered through repressive dictatorships and now wars that have killed many civilians as well as American troops. The real tragedy is this all may not have happened if it wasn’t for the United State’s imperialist aims.

The Iraqi people have gone through years and years of occupations. In 1258, the Mongols sacked Baghdad, murdering thousands. Later, the Iraqis became part of the Ottoman Empire.

After World War One, Ottoman rule ended but the Iraqi’s troubles were far from over. Great Britain, a country that never could keep its grubby paws off of other people’s possessions, was given a “mandate” over Iraq. In this case, the British wanted oil. They broke a promise to the Kurds to give them their own country because they would have had to give up Kurdish land with oil on it. They also set up puppet rulers and took away ownership of land from people whose ancestors had lived on it for centuries, giving it to landlords which effectively made the people serfs on their own land. Finally, a revolution in 1958 killed the puppet ruler and ended British rule.

Which takes us to the U.S.’s role. After a series of military rulers, the Baath party took over in 1963. A few years later, one of the Baath leaders, Saddam Hussein took total control and began a brutal dictatorship. The Bush administration justified the war in Iraq (after both Iraq’s harboring of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam’s support of Al-Qaeda were both exposed as lies) by saying that getting rid of Saddam would be beneficial to Iraqis. But that would go against the history of America’s dealings with Saddam. William Polk was responsible for planning American policy toward the Middle East during the Kennedy administration. In his book, Understanding Iraq Polk tells us that the CIA most likely helped with the coup that brought the Baath party into power and also helped to identify members of the former regime that were killed by the Baath. When Iraq went to war with Iran, the Reagan administration gave Saddam arms, money and food. Reagan also sent Donald Rumsfeld as a special envoy to visit Saddam and promise him that the U. S. would do whatever it took to ensure that Iraq did not lose the war. This was done by supplying or arranging for others to supply weapons, cluster bombs, components for nuclear weapons, and equipment to manufacture poison gas. U.S. and UN sanctions placed on Iraq after the Gulf War were also disastrous. Inflation destroyed the middle class. Malnutrition became widespread. Hospitals ran out of medicine and import mortality rates rose, all while Saddam was able to deflect these horrors onto the poor people of Iraq while he and his cronies continued to remain comfortably in power. Now the Iraqi people are in the middle of a new imperialist war which has led to a civil war which shows no sign of ending soon.

The people of Afghanistan are also no strangers to imperialism. In the 1980s they became the pawns of the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union. While the Soviets invaded the country and supported a puppet government, the U.S. supported the rebel fighters known as the mujahidin or Muslim Holy Warriors. To do this the U.S. gave money to Pakistan whose ruler, General Zia, broke a promise to hold elections and was currently beginning a nuclear program. Zia gave money to the mujahidin and other Islamic radicals. After the Soviets left, the fundamentalist Muslims eventually took over, culminating in the repressive rule of Osama bin Laden’s patrons, the Taliban.

Without the role of imperialism, it is quite possible that the horrors of September 11th and the two destructive wars that followed could have been avoided and thousands upon thousands of lives could have been saved.