Zaineb Alani is an Iraqi antiwar activist living in the US. In this speech, delivered at the July 10-12 US conference of the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, she explains why the so-called withdrawal of US forces from Iraq does not mean an end to the occupation. The speech is abridged from the US Socialist Worker.
On July 4, US Vice-President Joe Biden celebrated American Independence Day in occupied Iraq — in one of the presidential palaces of the former regime, now an integral part of the US-run "Green Zone".
Four days earlier, Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki's US-installed puppet government declared a "victory" signalled by the pullout of US troops from major Iraqi cities, and the beginning of the "restoration of sovereignty".
Nothing could have been more hypocritical or comical.
When the late Robert McNamara paid a visit to the independent country of Vietnam that he had previously "sought to conquer" and failed, he said to their foreign minister: "We wanted to give you democracy."
The reply was: "We wanted our independence first."
I'm amazed by the number of US people who are "hurt" that the Iraqis are celebrating US troop withdrawal with no "word of thanks". The sad truth is that there is no withdrawal, and there is nothing to thank for.
For the Iraqis, the list of war reparations is not one that the US can dream to even begin to fulfill.
How can you bring 1.2 million people back to life? How can you render 2 million war widows married wives again? And how can you give back a lost parent to 5 million Iraqi orphans?
The celebrations of "independence" in Iraq today are a circus where the primary clowns are the same thugs that count on the US presence to survive.
And how can anyone question the status of continued US military presence when the largest embassy in the world, the size of 80 football fields, lies in one of the most beautiful locations in the heart of Baghdad?
More than 130,000 US soldiers remain. This number is reminiscent of troop levels in 2003, when the invasion began.
To take it straight from the horse's mouth, the first US military commander in Iraq has openly announced "a longer stay in Iraq for US troops". In fact, General Odierno, insisted: "It's not going to end, okay? There'll always be some sort of low-level insurgency in Iraq for the next 5, 10, 15 years."
If so, then what are we celebrating?
The average Iraqi citizen rightly believes the US is there for the oil and the puppet government with its "selective-bid" oil contract policy is there to serve this very purpose.
The common sentiment in Baghdad is that we went from living under the rule of a tyrannical Ali Baba to that of "40 hundred" ruling thieves.
Transparency International lists Iraq as one of the countries showing the highest levels of perceived corruption.
In Iraq today, there is a detention nightmare reminiscent of Abu Ghraib under US authority, and very similar to the type of torture chambers that this very occupation claimed to wage war against!
Three hundred Iraqi detainees went on a hunger strike at the Risafa prison in mid-June. The world did not hear them.
Never before in Iraqi history have there been elections established on sectarian and ethnic platforms. This further reinforces the growth of "militias", paving the way to US-backed mercenary groups. The concept is foreign in Iraq's modern history.
Even when the people of Iraq voted, a large majority believed that by voting, they hastening US troop withdrawal. Sadly not.
The recent escalation of bombings in Iraq is not due to the temporary US withdrawal from the major cities, but rather a statement against a continued foreign occupation. Bombings will continue as long as there is foreign presence on Iraqi soil.
The foremost expert on the logic of suicide terrorism, Robert Pape, said that it is not primarily motivated by fundamentalism, but by the occupation. This is aggravated by a fundamental difference in faith and culture between the occupier and occupied people.
There are 2 million internally displaced people in Iraq and 4 million refugees surviving under the meanest living conditions in neighboring countries — topping the UNHCR World Refugee Statistics for the region.
Eighty percent of Iraqi civilians have witnessed shootings, kidnapping and killings (per UN statistics).
I teach refugees English as a second language in Columbus, Ohio. The trauma Iraqi refugees have witnessed is unimaginable. There is not one family who has not suffered their child being kidnapped or lost a loved one to sectarian killings.
I have personally witnessed the struggle of a 10-year-old, Jewad, to adapt to a normal life, where people are not necessarily out there to kill him. When Jewad was nine, his soccer ball rolled onto a corpse in a Baghdad dumpster. Needless to say, he now has no interest in any ball game.
In neighbouring countries, where there is a huge Iraqi refugee population, there also exists a thriving sex trade where the majority of the victims are female minors as young as 13-years-old.
Unemployment rates in Iraq fluctuate between 27 % and 60% depending on the region and whether or not a curfew is in effect. Forty percent of Iraq's professionals and technocrats have left the country. Two thousand-plus physicians have been murdered since 2005 and the health infrastructure is in tatters.
Disease is rampant, with approximately 10,000 inflicted with cholera. Ten years ago, there were only 12 known cases of AIDS. Today, the World Health Organisation puts the number at 75,000.
Today, Baghdad is a city of walls. Neighbourhoods are segregated like never before. Baghdad is finally "ethnically cleansed". Travelling from one neighborhood to another can still cost you your life if you do not carry an ID card.
My mother's childhood friend who needed kidney dialysis died on the way to hospital because the ambulance was stopped multiple times between neighbourhood checkpoints. Some delays took more than an hour.
Even if he had made it to hospital, the possibility of getting the appropriate treatment in a sanitary environment were slim.
Three months before the invasion, my mother underwent an angioplasty. Despite the sanctions on Iraq and the lack of non-expired materials, her surgery was successful.
Early this year, my brother's father-in-law had to be flown into neighbouring Amman for the same treatment because the best Iraqi hospitals could not provide it. He could afford the flight; other Iraqis in his condition would just perish.
My uncle, only six months ago, was wheeled out of an operating room three times because the dying hospital generators could not stop the recurrent power outages.
Power outages are still very frequent, with the population receiving only 50% of the power supply they used to have prior to the invasion.
Water, which was not potable prior to the invasion, is still dangerously contaminated in a lot of areas where people are dependant on well-water. This is because the pipes that connect them to the general water network that were bombed during the invasion have still not been repaired.
When I was growing up in Iraq, I was able to walk the streets dressed as I am now or drive my car in the streets of Baghdad. I went to school and completed my graduate degree there; I was one of 12 women who graduated from my department in 1991.
If I had wanted to pay a water bill, I would stand in a long line, but I would not have to bribe the clerk at the register to have my transaction completed. For every single government transaction today, you need to know somebody, and that somebody is dependent on your money to survive.
Otherwise, you can consider it lost in red tape for up to six months!
When my mother ventured to renew her passport, she was given two choices; wait for eight months, or pay US$600 to have it delivered in two weeks.
What caused this nightmare six years ago, and continues to cause it, has not and is not going away soon. The occupation seems here to stay, and the silence of the US people in the midst of an unprecedented economic crisis has left them confused and misguided as to what has brought all this about: namely, US foreign wars and imperialism.
The Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani people cannot win against the US war machine. On their own, they are helpless. We need to build an anti-war movement so strong that our voices are heard as one — so loud that we force the occupiers to leave the Middle East and elsewhere, where they impose their colonial occupations and plunder the natural resources and wealth of weaker nations.
US, Iraqi, Afghan and Palestinian peoples are paying a dear price in blood and treasure for the continuation of these wars and occupations.
My hope is that this movement unites, our minor differences are diminished by our bigger cause and this conference paves the way for agreement on united actions in the months ahead. I hope when we hit the streets, we are raise high the banners reading "Out Now!", "Out Now from Iraq! Out Now from Afghanistan! Out Now for Israeli Troops from Palestine!"
The world needs to know that the US anti-war movement is not only alive and kicking, but that it is determined to end the nightmares in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.