�655,000 people have died in Iraq as a result of the 2003 invasion . . ." --Lancet Report

"I reject the idea that we should cut off funding and by the way, I think it would also have a very, very bad effect on morale of our troops if we told them we were cutting off the funding for what they believe is a noble cause." --Sen. John McCain rebuttal to Congressional candidate Bruce Barley who said, if elected, he would vote to cut off the funding for war. [Source] [Italics added]

Previously, we discussed two views on the assassination of Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim. Now, we shall discuss the remaining: a view from the Arab Press, and the other, coming from the Zionists' doctrine of hyper-imperialism.

A view from the Arab press

Introduction: with the relative exception of Lebanon and Egypt, truly independent media never existed nor exists today in any Arab country. Keep in mind that, independent Arab media does not necessarily mean progressive or anti-imperialist, although it could be so. The general meaning of such media is that it is independent, to a certain degree, from state financing and tight control. Surprisingly though, some independent Arab media do exist but only outside the Arab countries such as the London-based Arabic paper of al-Quds al-Arabi (Arab Jerusalem) and its online website twin: www.alquds.co.uk

There is so much talk about the Qatari al-Jazeera TV Network station and websites, being independent. This is not true. Al-Jazeera may bring to the Arabs world news and discuss the situation of other Arab countries, but it never debated the political choices and deals of the Qatari government, its absolutist, medieval prince, or discussed the virtual American military occupation of Qatar. Why is that?

Answer: because the Emir of Qatar owns the station and his palace set its policy. Can we classify al-Jazeera TV station and its website as being independent on non-Qatari news such as U.S. war on Iraq or Israel on Lebanon? No, because the U.S. has muzzled al-Jazeera through the Emir, threatened to bomb it (because of its coverage of the early stages of the U.S. invasion of Iraq); and, reportedly, an Israeli company bought forty-nine percent of the station.

Considering the above, how did Arab media view the assassination of Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim within the contest of the occupation of Iraq? What was the extent with which the official or independent Arab media blew hot air into the Zionist bugle of the United States regarding �Zarqawi� or �al-Qaeda�?

Since after 9/11 and the allegation that most of the attackers of WTC were Saudi citizens, U.S. most submissive agent in the Middle East (the Saudi ruling family) did nothing but squirm with fatal fear in Bush�s lap to ward off U.S. blackmail. (Richard Lowry of the rightwing National Review, called for hitting Mecca with atomic bombs to retaliate for the WTC �attack.� (To confirm the idea of blackmail against Arabs and Muslims, just consider the recent revelations made by the Pakistani dictator, Pervez Musharraf to CBS program, 60 Minutes. Musharraf stated that former Undersecretary of State, Richard Armitage threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age, if it would refuse to cooperate on the invasion of Afghanistan)

With such a relation between a militarily strong blackmailer with a criminal intent, and a weak blackmailee, the Saudis executed all of the American demands and bowed to the slightest of verbal pressure to save their rotten rear-end from a superpower pretending madness to revive colonialist conquests.

After this generic introduction, let us discuss briefly two examples: 1) state-owned media as in the case of the Saudi-owned, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, and 2) independent media, as Al-Quds Al-Arabi.

How did Al-Sharq al-Awsat, the mouthpiece of the Saudi regime react to the assassination of al-Hakim? Did it indict anyone based on evidence?

Ghassan al-Imam, a journalist at the payroll of the Family, improvised himself as an Arab Sherlock Holms on the assassination. Al-Imam opined, �Saddam loyalists and radical Islamists had made a marriage of convenience.� Then, wanting to patronize the Iraqis, he �cautioned Sunni Iraqis not to shelter these mainly Sunni loyalists or radicals by saying they have formed a �hellish alliance� that will kill large crowds, such as in the Najaf bombing, or settle old scores, such as in the Aug. 7 bombing of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad.�

Notice how al-Imam imitates U.S. idioms as in �Saddam loyalists,� �radical Islamists,� �Sunni loyalists or �radicals.� Moreover, in line with his American masters via the Saudi ruling family�s prostration to U.S. will, al-Imam went on to ascribe the bombing of the Jordanian embassy, as well as, the assassination of Hakim to �Sunni extremists� without telling us as how his �investigative� brain reached that conclusion without investigation?�

Let us now review the case of independent Arab media journalists such Abd al-Wahhab al-Afandi. Afandi often publishes his articles on the London-based Arabic paper, Al-Quds al-Arabi that many consider audacious on Arab issues. The Sudanese, Afandi, is articulate, decisive, and most importantly, he opposes the decadent Arab system, as well as, Zionism and U.S. imperialism. Yet, when he treated the assassination of al-Hakim, Afandi offered the opportunity to see how it was easy for respected Arab writers to fall for U.S. propaganda.

He wrote, �Radical Islamists, who came to Iraq to repel foreign occupation, were resorting to violence against Iraqis who welcomed the invaders and religious institutions that were issuing fatwas forbidding the kinds of violent activities that the radicals came to perpetrate.�

Analysis

Aside from the small-minded and preconceived way with which he described the events in occupied Iraq, Afandi waded into a mined ideological territory without political ammunition or analytical cogency. To begin with, what is a �radical Islamist� in Afandi�s view?

Why is it that every time an Arab who opposes imperialism, colonialism, and Zionism is dubbed, �radical Islamist�? It is a known fact that, millions of citizens of the Arab world are neither Arab nor Muslim. Yet, one solid principle unifies all of these people: unyielding rejection of foreign domination, imperialism, colonialism, Zionism, capitalist slavery, national chauvinism, cultural fascism. Most importantly, they reject the Zionist American occupation of Iraq because, inherently and historically, they belong to the same societal structures that unify them despite peculiarities and specific history.

If adjectives are important to describe the religious beliefs of people making wars or people opposing them, then, why is that no one has ever called � consistently and repeatedly �George W. Bush, a radical Methodist; Colin Powell a firebrand Anglican Episcopalian; or Joseph Lieberman; an extremist Orthodox Jew?

The point is, with such shallow analytical tools and political predisposition to dispense with investigation to suit the spur of the moment or to appear politically poised and evenhanded, al-Afandi attributed the violence in Iraq to �religious institutions that were issuing fatwas forbidding the kinds of violent activities that the radicals came to perpetrate.�

As you can see, although the American and British governments never named al-Qaeda or Zarqawi in the assassination of al-Hakim, they, nevertheless, attributed the attack against Hakim to what had become a universal appellation: Arab and Islamist �terrorists.�

In general, and as far as it concerns the ideological attitudes of the official Arab �intellectuals,� they became political marionettes in the hands of the United States to save their benefactor regimes from America�s blackmail. The trend is to join in the Zionist American crusade against their own people by adulating the new American Hitler and his fascist brand of democracy. In the end, it is now the fashion, even among the Arabs, to avoid putting the blame for the problems of the Middle East on the U.S. policy and its ideological praxis in the Middle East. Instead they focus exclusively on so-called, Islamists, radicals, etc.

�Radical Islamists� said Afandi. Of course, Afandi cannot define who a �radical Muslim� is, and what �radical Islam� is. If he did, he would have at least defined it for his readers in his numerous articles. All what I read of him is that he calls the opponents of U.S. imperialism in the Arab world, �radicals.� Does he imply that if an Arab Muslim in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or Jordan would accept U.S. imperialist slavery, he or she would earn the title of �moderate�!

How did Zionist political thinkers interpret the assassination of Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim?

A view from Zionism

In Part 10, I brought you the example of a Zionist scholar, Marjorie Cohn in relation to the attack against the United Nations� building in Baghdad and the killing of U.N. envoy to occupied Iraq Sergio Vieira De Mello. This time, I shall introduce you to William O. Beeman, Director of Middle East Studies at Brown University, and author of a book whose title -- by itself alone -- is a masterpiece of Zionist fraud and racist, chauvinist arrogance: "Iraq: State in Search of a Nation."

Among the many articles I evaluated to use in the Zarqawi Affair, I selected Beeman�s because its ideological insidiousness is such that a methodical reading of it would suffice to stitch together all missing pieces in the American-Israeli project in the Middle East. Aside from deliberate historical inaccuracies in his account and manifest ignorance on important subjects related to Iraq, Beeman�s way of discussion is articulated in such a way that we could almost touch the reason for which the U.S. created the bloody Zarqawi hoax to kill tens of thousands of Iraqis.

Consequently, I shall discuss Beeman�s articles from one specific perspective: did he envision any platform that unifies the multiple �Zarqawist� strategies of the United States to conquer Iraq? Was that his personal vision or that of the circulating ideology of Zionist Hyper-imperialism? In addition, although he did not speak expressly of terrorism in Iraq, can we see the ghost of Zarqawi hovering in the background?

Beeman entitled his article, �Killing of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim is the Start of an Iraqi Civil War.� He then followed his piece by 1) an �obituary� on Hakim written by Lawrence Joffe, 2) the last Sermon that al-Hakim delivered before his assassination, and 3) a biography of Hakim. (Both, sermon and biography were taken from a Shiite website called, hussaynia.com). By combining all these pieces of information together, Beeman�s earnest hope was to present his propaganda piece as a �comprehensive� research on Hakim.

Interestingly, just like the Guardian who selected Joffe to write the Zionist obituary of Hakim, Beeman chose the same obituary with the clear intention to back up his own writing. In terms of psychological induction, Beeman�s approach to propaganda was exemplary: he relied on an indoctrination piece written by another Zionist to amplify his own, thus continuing the interminable indoctrination process. It is even more interesting to note that Beeman did not analyze Hakim�s last sermon at all, although he cited some of his earlier quotes. Nevertheless, Hakim�s sermon is the most important evidence that the U.S. killed him.

Beeman�s thesis on the assassination

Beeman is excellent at doing his deception. He combines thematically misleading arguments with propagandistically well-constructed but deceitful insertions. How did he do that? He mixed an irrelevant criticism of the Bush Regime with the real theses that drive his argument. Aim: convey the image of an unbiased, critical observer.

To dissect where Beeman misled, and considering the ongoing American-promoted sectarian situation in Iraq (including acts enacted by American death squads but attributed to sectarian infighting), analyzing Beeman�s themes � one at a time � is the best approach to understand where he was heading.

Beeman: �The assassination of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim in Najaf on Aug. 28 is the opening volley in the coming Iraqi Civil War. The United States will reap the whirlwind.�

Analysis: it is evident that Beeman was keen to tie the assassination of Hakim to �the coming Iraqi Civil War.� Why is that? Retrospectively, was the assassination of a Catholic, John Kennedy� the opening volley in a possible civil war between Southern Baptists and Catholics? The answer is no. Why did Beeman then prophesize such an outcome by the assassination of Hakim, unless U.S. Zionists were already engaging in the promotion of such a war among the occupied Iraqis? As a reminder, when Egyptian nationalists assassinated former Egyptian dictator Anwar Sadat, confessional war did not erupt between traditional Sunni Muslims and Islamist Sunnis, so why must a war erupt between Iraqi Arab Shiite Muslims, and Arab Sunni Muslims, unless, Beeman already decided that the Sunnis killed Hakim, so a �civil war� should have been the natural response.

Beeman: One of the most consistent and ominous prewar warnings to the Bush administration by Middle East experts was that removal of Saddam Hussein without the most careful political and social engineering would result in the breaking apart of Iraq into warring factions that would battle each other for decades.

Analysis: First, as customary for this type of propaganda, Beeman did not reveal the identity of the experts that he cited nor how they acquired their expertise. Second, because an agenda was driving his intent, Beeman was not concerned if the U.S. would reap the whirlwind � he is only dismayed that George Bush invaded Iraq without careful imperialist engineering. Had this �engineering� been thoughtful, Beeman would have probably abstained from criticism -- which is what he implied with his phrase, �careful political and social engineering.�

Pay attention that on the scale of relevance, Beeman�s phrase �social engineering� is the clue to the assassination of Hakim and the prospect of war among the Iraqis. While political engineering is the easiest task because of the availability of Iraqi traitors and Kurdish separatists who would serve the Americans to devise a political system agreeable to Washington and Tel Aviv, social engineering is a somber concept full with criminal precedents that include the extermination of the Original Peoples in every land that white Europeans invaded and conquered.

The fundamental question that would shed light on the creation of Zarqawi as a necessity for this engineering is, �For what objective must the United States socially re-engineer a society that has been engineered by thousands of years of history?� The answer, again, cannot be but one: oil and the ideology of empire.

If �social engineering� of Iraq is the way to oil and empire, then how did Beeman articulate his idea of that engineering?

Next: Part 14 of 23

B.J. Sabri is an Iraqi-American antiwar activist. Email: bjsabri@yahoo.com

Previously published