�Four more U.S. soldiers have been charged with rape and murder and a fifth with dereliction of duty in the alleged rape-slaying of a young Iraqi woman and the killings of her relatives in Mahmoudiya, the military said Sunday. Green [one of the rapist murders] is accused of raping the woman and killing her and three relatives -- an adult male and female and a girl estimated to be 5 years old. An official familiar with the investigation said he set fire to the rape victim's body in an apparent cover-up attempt.� --International Herald Tribune - Aug 8, 2006. [Italics added]

Within the United States, three forces converged to destabilize the Arab states through wars, threat of military intervention, and assassination of political figures.

First force: secular Jewish Zionists including secular neocon Christians; objective: tight control over world governments; methods: international finance, U.S. and Israel�s nuclear threat, military assistance, or other forms of control through blackmail or pressure by their American proxy (the U.S. government). Specific objective: liquidate the Palestinian Question, direct or indirect military control of Arab states, and, ultimately, the subjugation of the Arab nations to the American and Israeli will.

Second force: traditional imperialists; objective: the establishment of a global American Empire; methods: the political use of the military and economic powers of the United States, threat of nuclear war, and threat of unilateral military action. Specific objective: establish direct or indirect military control over Arab lands, oil, and other resources.

Third force: theological Christian Zionists; objective: the evangelization of the Arab peoples in line with biblical �prophesies; methods: 1) employ the military forces of the United States to protect the process of conversion, 2) bribery, and 3) charity programs. (Currently, there are over 380 Christian groups working around the clock to convert Iraqi Muslims. Also, there is a plan to build the largest church in the Middle East capable of seating 25,000 worshipers with money taken from Iraqi oil sales or expropriation.

Considering the alacrity of means and the unchained aggressiveness of the United States of George Bush, it is realistic to predict that these three forces would not stop after Iraq or Lebanon despite lulls and delays. This is not a hypothesis, but a reasoned expectation based on the study of U.S.-Israeli military activity curves, �mission� statements by the establishment, and material facts on the ground.

Arguably, if the psychopathic ideologues of empire in the U.S., Britain, France, and, of course, Israel were to succeed in achieving their immediate goals, the fabric of our civilization will permanently unravel, and countless nations who thus far enjoyed peaceful ethnic and religious mosaics should begin to fear for their existence.

In examining the U.S.-Israeli association, it is possible to identify an intricate, multi-stage strategic plan. In this plan, acts of self-inflicting terrorism (it is possible that 9/11 is such an act), aggressive policy to provoke reactive hostility to facilitate intervention, pretexts, and rationales form one unitary purpose. Thus, 9/11, the story of Iraq�s WMD, the story of al-Qaeda, the story that Syria assassinated a former Lebanese officer, are all chapters in that plan. For example, Israel destroyed a half of Lebanon under the pretext that Lebanese fighters captured two of its soldiers.

(On the specific subject of the captured Israeli soldiers, one has to remember a few facts. First, technically, Lebanon is still at war with the Israel since it never had a peace treaty with it. Second, Israel still occupies a part of Lebanese territory (the Shabba Farms). Third, Israel has been detaining over 1,510 Lebanese prisoners since it invaded Lebanon in 1982.)

Having outlined the American-Israeli goals in the Middle East, we have to ask a series of preliminary questions: who invented the Zarqawi hoax, why, and what role it played in the American tactic to keep Iraq occupied while igniting a confessional war between Iraqi Arab Muslims. Most importantly, how did the United States prepare for the appearance of Zarqawi on the Iraqi scene?

First, let us go back to the day when the Bush Regime spread the news of its latest military �marvel� in occupied Iraq, i.e., the �killing of Zarqawi." On that day, it was as if the world came to a standstill: hold your breath, praise the Lord, and say halleluiah. . . . for the hyper-empire killed Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi, whom the United States described as �al-Qaeda leader� in Iraq and the �mastermind� of the Iraqi �insurgency."

The ensuing orchestrated emotional frenzy was uncontrollable. The White House rejoiced, newspapers published a large photograph of his lifeless face, and TV stations broadcasted the same repeatedly. America�s man at the United Nations, Kofi Annan, expressed his pleasure in the elimination of a man who �harmed� innocent Iraqi civilians, columnists of the empire theorized on how a post-Zarqawi world would look, and Forbes Magazine speculated on possible fluctuations in the stock market.

More: Europeans and Russians exalted; Israel (the co-maker of the Zarqawi hoax) sarcastically celebrated; the American marionette in Baghdad, Iraqi �Prime Minister" al-Maliki called it a �victory against terrorism�; and Islamists lauded his �mystical martyrdom and the trail of incense he left behind.�

Many Arab regimes applauded; besieged Iran, which did not object to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, remained ambiguous but expressed satisfaction; and pro-occupation Iraqis, be they Kurds, Arab Shiite, or Arab Sunnis, partied.

How did progressive writers and analysts react to the �death� of Zarqawi? Many critics of this violent American Empire joined in the celebration. It is unsettling that a majority of these critics dispensed with the requirements for a rigorous analysis, imitated the imperialist media, and, to varying degrees, copied the parlance of the Bush regime. Many spoke of Zarqawi as a �ruthless killer," but without providing any evidence on either guilt or innocence, or ever questioning whether he was a hoax or real.

In sum, if Zarqawi�s death were a cake, not even a crumb of it remained after all those who had interests in his story took a greedy bite at it. Yet, attentive readers should treat all this over-inflated commotion with an infinite dose of skepticism while remembering that we are dealing with another gigantic farce that U.S. war strategists scripted in the guise of Colin Powell�s U.N. presentation on Iraq�s nuclear and biological capabilities, and on Blair�s assertion that Iraq could hit Britain within 45 minutes notice.

Briefly, Bush, who gave us the crimes of 9/11, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Falluja, Talaafar, and Haditha; who occupied Afghanistan under the pretext that it sheltered al-Qaeda; who created the hoax of Iraq�s WMD to invade it; who turned Iraq into mass graves; and who transformed America into a praetorian Zionist police state, has only killed the hoax he created.

Is it true that Bush killed a hoax?

Metaphorically, the staged killing, or going public with Zarqawi�s �death� -- if indeed the U.S. killed a real person -- long after the occupation force killed him, made the hyper-empire look like a very nervous Don Quixote fighting the ghosts it created at American carnage mills around Iraq.

Seeing the surrealistic euphoria that engulfed most of the world consequent to Zarqawi�s �death," we have to raise more questions. Did the United States kill a physical or ethereal Zarqawi? Did Zarqawi really exist? Was he an American agent? Was he, as per U.S. propaganda, the al-Qaeda point man in Iraq? Does al-Qaeda itself exist in Iraq or elsewhere? Was Zarqawi really the nightmare of U.S. occupying troops in Iraq and of Iraqi Arab Shiite Muslims?

In particular, if Zarqawi, as the U.S. claimed, was conducting an �insurgency� against the U.S. and its Iraqi �stooges," why is it he never attacked U.S. forces, but only Arab Shiite Muslims people, but, never attacked or killed pro-occupation Shiite leaders?

Surprisingly, why is it that Zarqawi never attacked or killed any Kurd -- be they ordinary people, leaders, or militia? Again, why and who decided to spare the Kurds from his �wrath�? Does this suspicious selectivity prove that Zarqawi, if he existed in the specifications the U.S. supplied us with, was colluding with the United States to spare the Kurds since they, together with Iraqi Shiite Arabs, have become the spear of U.S. colonialism in the entire Arab and Muslim worlds?

More important than anything else, who massacred tens of thousands of Iraqis -- specifically, Arab Sunni and Shiite -- like sheep? Who cut their heads off, drilled their eyes, mutilated their genitals, and destroyed the symbols and temples of Islam and Christianity across Iraq: Zarqawi, the United States, or someone else?

In Iraq�s long history, there have been only two events where such barbarity occurred. The first, after the Mongols of Holagu invaded and occupied Iraq (center of the Abbasid Empire) and destroyed its capital city, Baghdad, in 1258. The second, after George Bush and Zionists invaded and occupied it in 2003. That means, this type of atrocity is foreign and is imported. Ancient, mediaeval and modern world history is filledl with accounts of how foreign invaders killed, maimed, raped, tortured, and performed macabre rituals on their victims. What we have seen from the American invasion of Iraq proves that in matters of invasions, the Americans as invaders are no different from any other invaders in history, if not the worst, since they pretend to possess superior �civilized behavior� over the rest.

By a twist of history, the American invasion of Iraq offered a rare insight on how past invaders destroyed the lands and civilizations they invaded. Except in our time, we have the remarkable power to see invasions as they happen.

Moreover, our evidence of the U.S. crimes in post-invasion Iraq does not take its strength from either perception or impression, but from the splendid power of a modern device that depicts reality without retouch: the unbiased lens of a camera or camcorder!

We do not have photographs or video showing how the U.S. government and white settlers destroyed the Original Peoples to conquer their lands, but we do have photographs and video films showing the �Shock and Awe� bombardment of Iraq to conquer it. We do not have photographs or video showing how Holagu�s warriors tortured their captive Baghdadis and split their bodies with horses running in opposite directions, but we do have photographs and video showing how Bush�s soldiers abused and tortured the Baghdadis in Abu Ghraib prison. And so on. . . .

Also, because the American strategy in occupied Iraq exceeds by its planned violence all strategies of past fascist regimes, it is mandatory to keep asking questions. For instance, who created the bloody saga of Zarqawi then tore it down at a crucial point to show off the �prowess� of an empire in fast decline and deep military crisis? Who is destroying Iraqi cities and forcing 3 million Iraqis from all groups to seek refuge in neighboring countries, Zarqawi or the United States? Who forced over a half million Iraqis in the Anbar province to become refugees in their own land,: Zarqawi or the United States? Who is destroying Iraqi mosques and churches,: Zarqawi or the United States? Who raped Iraqi women and sodomized young Iraqi boys,: Zarqawi or U.S. soldiers?

To answer these and other questions, we have to take the bold step and reframe the issue of Zarqawi after flushing out of it all neocon indoctrinations, mechanical political views, copied statements, parroted views, or simplistic approaches. In the rest of this series, I shall discuss the Zarqawi affair according to the following sequence: discussion, questions and answers, and conclusion.

Discussion

I must point out first that any discussion of the Zarqawi hoax or the tale of the �al-Qaeda insurgency� in Iraq is pointless unless we tie the invention of the hoax to three essential factors. First, U.S. geostrategic procedures and tactical management of the occupation; second, the ethnical, confessional, and econo-political order created by the occupiers to achieve conquest; and third, the Iraqi resistance to the American occupation.

However, because of severe shortage on verifiable information on Zarqawi, we have to separate his affair from the hyperbole that envelopes it. To do that, we have to employ a dual tool: logic as supported by facts, and facts as supported by articulate examination. Again, documented facts on Iraqi events under the American Occupation Regime (AOR) do not exist since the United States, its Iraqi surrogates, and the rest of the world, each for its own reason, are all partners in the crime of silence about what happens in Iraq. (Although sluggish on daring political analysis, Dhar Jamail�s MidEast Dispatches are a reliable source on specific details of the occupation.)

For instance, let us assume that �Zarqawi� was an enemy of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. If this were the case, then why do many consider his armed resistance anathema?

A possible answer could be something like this: he was a �terrorist." If we were to ask as who made that claim, and if the answer is George Bush and the neocons, then we have a problem. First, if Zarqawi�s existence itself is dubious, then why should we believe the attributes of a person whose existence is in doubt? A Muslim person with specific, even rigidly dogmatic beliefs about Islam, does not automatically qualify that person to join the club of terrorists -- assuming we know what a terrorist is? But, if a �terrorist� means someone who is fighting U.S. military occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the soft American military occupation of the Arabic Peninsula, that entails one thing: the appellation given to that fighter is only political. As such, it is biased thus inconsequential.

Arguably, if the U.S. and Israel want to institute a joint empire nourished by the blood of nations incapable of defending themselves, then they should expect resistance. The idea that the neocons can unleash their military terrorism on Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and elsewhere, while expecting a thankful gesture and a smile is not attractive to the survivors of that terrorism.

Next, we are going to debate this issue from a different angle: if the specific conditions of a nation (such as Iraq) impede it from repelling an invasion by a technologically superior enemy, does this enemy expect that nation to submit to its order and accept being conquered?