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3-20-06, 8:27 am
OCCUPATION forces have chosen the third anniversary of their illegal invasion of Iraq to launch an exercise around Samarra that they describe as the largest airborne assault since March 2003.
In contrast, anti-war campaigners across the globe, not least in the heart of the warmonger states of Britain and the US, are marking three years of imperialist war crimes by demanding a policy U-turn.
The longer that the Bush-Blair unholy alliance persists with its dead-end approach, the more likely that it will seek to cloak its failure by escalation.
And despite statements emanating from both Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Prime Minister Tony Blair, who deny that there will be a military strike against Iran, that is not the impression given by Bush administration officials such as US ambassador to the UN John Bolton.
The occupation armed forces are caught in a military and political quagmire, which can be ended only by immediate unconditional withdrawal.
US troops, over 2,300 of whom have been killed so far, are bearing the brunt of the casualties, being stationed in areas of Iraq where military resistance is highest.
British forces, which have responsibility for Basra and the southern provinces, once patrolled in shirt sleeves and soft desert hats. They are now confined to barracks and local civilian authorities refuse to deal with them.
In the event of a US-British strike on Iran, it is difficult to imagine the scale of military assault that would be directed against troops based in southern Iraq.
The question that increasing numbers of people, including military families, are asking is, why are the troops still there?
The Prime Minister initially lied about a supposed 45-minute threat to British troops stationed in Cyprus, which were posed by Saddam Hussein’s production of weapons of mass destruction.
He knew then that Iraq had no such weapons and, these days, everyone knows that.
Subsequent justification has included the mythical war against terror, the training of Iraqi armed forces to defend their country’s sovereignty and construction of a new democratic Iraq.
Iraq is now a magnet for terrorist groups, its armed forces are subject to orders from the occupiers and its ethnically and confessionally based democracy is so debased that, two months after the latest electoral farce, the country’s parties cannot agree a government.
Mr Blair now speaks of remaining in Iraq "until the job is done," while some Iraqi groups pay lip service to ending the occupation - but not immediately, insisting that civil society is being built under the protection of foreign military power.
Presumably this rebuilding process comprises the current ban on free trade unionism and the ongoing failure to secure clean water, power supplies, jobs and security for the people of Iraq.
Today’s marchers will tell the government that there is no progressive role for the occupation. Foreign troops must be withdrawn immediately from Iraq and there must be no escalation of regional conflict in the shape of an attack on Iran.
From Morning Star
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