IRAQ IS ARABIC FOR VICHY

by

John Gorman

While t-shirts emblazoned with "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam" have yet to appear, another parallel suggests itself to anyone familiar with less recent history: America is enmeshed in a re-enactment of France in1941, with the Americans playing the German occupiers and the Iraqi fighters cast as the Resistance.

In 1940, France's military defenses had collapsed before the German Blitzkrieg. The enemy had paraded in triumph through Paris. France seemed utterly and irrevocably defeated. Having dictated a treaty, the invaders proceeded to set up a puppet government in Vichy to incorporate France into The New World Order of the Third Reich.

By the following year, however, a resistance movement was under way, striking first at the conquerors and then at their collaborators. Attacks at first were small and casualties light, but, as the Resistance grew more organized and could draw on outside help, it went from a nuisance to a menace. Railroads, tunnels, bridges, highways, pipelines and canals were under constant assault. Even when off duty, German officers and noncoms were ordered to wear their sidearms, and enlisted men were told to take their bayonets along when they left the barracks. Nowhere did the conquerors feel safe.

When military measures failed to suppress the uprising, the Germans resorted to

wholesale arrests, torture, hostage taking, summary executions and other war crimes, culminating in the massacre of an entire village in 1944. They also recruited the Milice, a paramilitary force of French sympathizers, drawn largely from rightwing elements that viewed a German occupation as preferable to a communist “take over,” to hunt down members of the Resistance for their Nazi masters, leading to a quasi civil war in France. Nonetheless, the Resistance was not crushed and played a vital role in keeping substantial German forces from the front during the Normandy invasion.

The Iraqi military collapsed in the face of the American and British Blitzkrieg, and American troops paraded in triumph through the nation's capital. The bloody reign of Saddam Hussein was over, and a new democratic Iraq would not be long in coming, the world was assured. In the meantime, the Americans, like their German counterparts, have set up a puppet government to manage the transition into the New World Order.

Somehow, much of that message got lost in translation. While most Iraqis were delighted to be rid of Saddam Hussein, very few were ready to support an indefinite occupation of their homeland by foreign infidels. Once again, the infrastructure of the country, the invaders and their collaborators have become the targets of constant attack, as the occupation becomes ever more dangerous.

While the occupation forces have not yet resorted to reprisals against the civilian population, other heavy-handed measures and the refusal to set a timetable for departure have done much to alienate sympathizers and turn the conflict from a last ditch fight by Saddam's diehards into a war of national liberation, as the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds all seek their independence, a struggle no colonial power has won in our time.

Like the French Milice, a New Iraqi Army has been recruited with the primary task of killing other Iraqis who reject American rule. As with the Milice, recruits are not likely to be of high caliber. Nor will it be safe to be a family member or friend of these collaborators, especially when the Americans finally leave, and the "night of the long knives" comes.

In the meantime, some Muslim countries have come to view the struggle in Iraq as an opportunity to strike or at least countenance vicarious blows against The Great Satan with covert aid, much as the United States did for the Taliban in Afghanistan. With this help, larger and more destructive attacks are becoming the order of the day, as America's commitment grows deeper and the casualty list longer.

It may be that the current administration will find these losses an acceptable price for its new oil rich colony in the Middle East and be prepared to occupy Iraq forever. The American people, however, have shown no stomach for sacrificing their loved ones in endless colonial wars in the past and are unlikely to change their minds now. More likely will be a call to the once scorned United Nations to supervise a withdrawal and keep reprisals to a minimum, as Americans and their servants make a humiliating exit reminiscent of the scene on the roof of the United States Embassy in Saigon, when South Vietnam disintegrated.

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                                                                                                            John Gorman

Bio: John Gorman is a freelance journalist based in Florida.