by Mark de Jong

Created on: February 09, 2007   Last Updated: April 19, 2007

Over the past year, ninety-four Iraqi civilians have been dying every day, and one hundred or so more get wounded every day. In recent weeks sixty-five university students were killed in a US bombing in Baghdad. The problem is that news like this is no longer suprising. In spite of numb complacency, it is useful to take a look back at the wake of these events.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that all of this chaos, and disorder predates US-UK intervention, and that these are all necessary sacrifices to uproot an evil tyrant, and fight terrorism. While that all seems perfectly plausible, if you are a casual follower of mainstream American media, there is also an untold history lying beneath the surface.
Iraq was usurped from the Ottoman Empire by the British after World War I. Iraq gained independence in 1932, but the British maintained a military presence in an attempt to control the resources of the region (mainly oil). The borders were drawn so that Iraq itself would not have access to the Persian Gulf, forcing them to be dependent on the British to export their resources. Kuwait was thus posited as a buffer between Iraq and the gulf, as a place where the aristocratic oil tycoons could live.
Saddam Hussein, and his tyrannical Ba'ath party were put in power by the US. America has, since the end of WWII, positioned itself to control the Middle East. This is facilitated by supporting Israel, and positioning them as the only Middle Eastern country with nuclear capabilities. Saddam was a useful tool to check the power of Iran, and Iraq in the region. The reason the US "knew" Iraq had weapons of mass destruction is because they sold them to Iraq. During the time of the Iran-Iraq war in the mid 1980's, Saddam's regime began its atrocities against the Kurds (an ethnic group that seeks its own sovereign country of Kurdistan) in Northern Iraq using American made chemical weapons. The United States continued to support Saddam during this time, and also supplied Iran with additional weapons under the table.
When Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990 (the event which sparked the Gulf War), he was under the impression that he still had American support. He did not have it because the US suddenly realized the repercussions of Iraq gaining control of their own resources. This is not to say that he was a good leader, or a good man, but it is necessary to understand the history and complexities of the issue.
After the Gulf War, the US and UK imposed strict economic sanctions on Iraq

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>