Jim McIlroy, Brisbane
"No-one in Iraq supports the US invasion; no-one supports the occupation; we all want the invasion to end", Farouk Ismaal, international relations officer of the General Union of Oil Employees (Iraq), told 100 people in the Queensland Trades and Labor Council auditorium on October 6. The public meeting was part of a national tour by Ismaal, sponsored in Brisbane by the Stop the War Collective.
"The US created Saddam Hussein and the CIA backed his coming to power in 1968. The US supported and pushed him to invade Iran [in 1980], resulting in an eight-year war that cost 4 million people killed or injured", Ismaal said. The US also "gave the green light for Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait in 1990, then used that invasion to attempt to take control of the whole Middle East region".
The US-led invasion of Iraq has killed at least 100,000 people, "and with the military invasion, there was an economic invasion. American companies tried to take control."
Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root "wanted to control Iraqi oilfields", Ismaal said, "but we started a strike to stop them. We said they had no right to put Iraqi oil under their control. This land is our land; this resource is our resource. We will be human shields to protect our national wealth. When they saw how strong we were, they were forced to withdraw.
"The people's resistance to the occupation takes two forms: first, the peaceful way, involving demonstrations and strikes. The Western media does not tell you about these actions. Second, there is military resistance. To resist is the right of every nation which is invaded ... Democracy cannot be imposed from outside."
Ross Daniels, a human rights lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology, told the meeting: "The invasion of Iraq is illegal in international law. And an American general recently said, 'We are losing the war'. We need to mobilise to keep the pressure on the Howard government to withdraw Australian troops."
He also drew a direct link between Australia's new "anti-terrorism laws" and the government's attempt to "stifle dissent".
Claire English, representing the Iraqi Solidarity Tour Committee, called on the audience to support the national day of action against the Iraq war on November 5.
From Green Left Weekly, October 12, 2005.
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