People's Democracy

Editorial

 

US Imperialism’s Face

Exposed Yet Again

 

THE sustained release of secret US war documents by the whistle blowing website WikiLeaks has exposed the true face of US imperialism. This self-appointed champion of the `free world’ ever enthusiastic to comment on so-called `human rights violations’ in other countries, especially its political opponents is exposed as an administration that resorts to the worst expressions of inhuman crimes.  The recent release of nearly four lakh secret US documents on the Iraq war by WikiLeaks details deaths of nearly one lakh ten thousand innocent civilians in Iraq, pushing the number of such murders up exponentially. 

 

These documents chronicling the US military occupation and war in Iraq from 2004 to 2009 clearly show the barbaric manner in which the US and allied troops unleashed gory violence against the Iraqis.  There are graphic accounts of the manner in which US established puppet Iraqi government and its armed forces attacked and eliminated those resisting US military occupation.  While the abuse of Iraqi war prisoners  by the US forces,  particularly at the Abu Ghraib prison, shocked the world, these WikiLeaks documents detailed an even more lurid  sequence of abuses by the US supported Iraqi forces. 

 

WikiLeaks has made these documents available to The New York Times, the British daily The Guardian, the French newspaper Le Monde and the German magazine Der Spiegel.  The consequent exposure has shocked the world’s moral conscience. These leaks are being termed as the largest classified military leak in the history of the USA. 

 

The United Nations has called on Barrack Obama to order a full investigation of the US armed force’s involvement in human rights abuses in Iraq, on the basis of these documents that detail accounts of torture, summary executions and war crimes.  The UN’s chief investigator on torture, Manfred Nowak, said that these documents point to clear violations of the UN Convention against Torture.  The Obama administration, therefore, has an obligation to investigate them. The new British coalition government has described these leaks as `extraordinarily serious’ and `shocking’.  The deputy prime minister of UK, Nick Clegg, has said that the Tony Blair government’s decision to join the US in the March 2003 invasion of Iraq was `illegal’. 

 

These documents show that the US war in Iraq also relied on private contractors previously unknown in US imperialist wars across the globe.  The documents described the outsourcing of combat and other duties once performed by soldiers that grew and spread to Afghanistan to the point that there are more contractors than soldiers.  In all probability, it is these armed elements which are, today, spreading violence in Afghanistan giving sustenance to the Taliban.   This, in turn, is being used by the USA as the excuse to mount additional troops in its war in Afghanistan. 

 

US imperialism must be made to answer for such gross abuses of human rights and worst incidents of war crimes in modern times. 

 

When president Obama comes visiting us shortly, India must raise these issues and remind him of the unanimous resolution of the Indian parliament which disapproved (not condemned, as the Left had demanded) US military invasion in Iraq. India must also raise with US president the issue of David Headley who confessed his involvement in the Mumbai terror attack of 26/11.  It has now been shown that he was working as a double agent for both the Al Qaeda through the Lashkar-e-Toiba and US intelligence agencies while he was receiving training at terrorist camps in Pakistan.  It must be noted that the decision to arrest Headley  was taken only after he shifted his attention from India to Europe and not on the grounds of his involvement in 26/11.  Headley has pleaded guilty to all twelve terror charges under a plea bargain.  The New York Times  (NYT) reported that two of Headley’s three wives had warned US authorities first in 2005 and then again in 2008 of his links with the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the plot to strike Mumbai.  The NYT indicated that the reason why USA did not follow up on these warnings may have been  to avoid a line of investigation that could lead to evidence of its key ally Pakistan’s involvement in these attacks which Pakistan’s ISI vociferously denies.  

 

The Obama administration must be made to come clean on this issue  and give India a categorical assurance that it will demonstrate zero tolerance to terrorism  in India and take action against those who plot against India from its soil.  However, history has once again demonstrated that US imperialism acts only in accordance with its interests.  A leopard never changes its spots. 

 

All its excuses justifying its war against Iraq have been proved to be false and untenable.  Yet, on this basis, US imperialism has revealed, once again, to the world its inhuman face.  All freedom loving people who cherish fundamental human rights and civil liberties must not merely condemn US imperialism but demand accountability for the sake of humanity at large. 

 

(October 27, 2010)