Sergio de Mello: Victim of Madmen v. Madmen
Harold Hark
21 August 2003

Except for letter writers to the newspapers and anti-Bush web sites around the world, nobody with influence is saying it in the mainstream media (and, Gort help us, they may not even be thinking it), but Sergio de Mello and his colleagues would be alive today if George W. Bush had not stolen the 2000 election.

Thousands have died because of this war criminal's coup d'etat.

No one will ever know for sure, but I for one am convinced that the September 11 bombings in New York and Washington would not have happened either. Bush and his imperialist cronies knew the attack was planned but did nothing. They chose to ignore intelligence to save their puppet from languishing in the polls as a dud usurper. They are as guilty as the bombers themselves.

From September 11 to the present and into the foreseeable future, Bush's policies, or the policies of his puppeteers, will cause untold bloodshed. There will be a crisis point (it may already have been reached) where even his and their removal from office will not stop the slaughter.

And the slaughter will continue all because of oil.

There may have been other reasons for the invasion (all despicable) but only oil explains American reticence to intervene in other tyrannies where there is no oil.

The invasion of Iraq is now seen as an irrefutable disaster. Chaos rules. The lunatic terrorist attack on the UN did not happen because it was a soft target, but because the UN is now seen as the lackey of US imperialist occupation.

The UN should pull out of Iraq and leave the mess to George Bush. Until the US pulls out completely and allows the UN to restore order out of its chaos, there can be no effective reason for the UN to remain. Bush's administration refused to abide by the UN veto of the war; the UN should not now be what amounts to his charwoman.

This may sound harsh in view of the inevitable catastrophe that would befall Iraqis. Civil war would likely follow, resulting eventually in a divided state run by mullahs: the opposite of what the naive Bush junta had planned for, but exactly what the rest of us expected. But Iraqis had decades to mount a coup against Saddam Hussein. Those who are now suicide bombers against the occupiers could have used that tragic method on the tyrant.

It may be stretching credibility to suggest that a similar fate may await Australians if they don't remove John Howard at the next election. Another decade of his anti-social policies could render Australia a nation of sheep in the same way that Iraqis became ciphers under Saddam.

But whether the US stays or goes, Iraq is now a nation at war. Against the occupiers and against itself. Iraq's dreadful future, as well as the heinous, tragic, and above all, unnecessary death of Sergio de Mello and his colleagues, rests squarely upon the pointy head of George W. Bush.

We are all at the mercy of a junta of psychopaths. And their deputies.

P.S. Here is a letter from today's Age newspaper:

I was deeply shocked to hear news of the death of UN special representative to the Secretary-General in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, in Tuesday's suicide bombing in Baghdad.

I worked as Sergio's personal interpreter in East Timor for a two-year period until last year, when he was UN transitional administrator there. During that time I accompanied him and his staff on a wide range of tasks and a number of trips to regional areas - including meeting political parties and women running as candidates for office in East Timor's Constituent Assembly elections in 2001 and briefing Timorese non-government organisations on UN plans for the country. It was a fascinating and very instructive experience to work with Sergio, as the UN's highest officeholder in East Timor.

Unlike the UN mission in East Timor, which was seen by the population as a step in the transition to independence, the UN in Iraq is seen as an extension of US occupation - particularly through its endorsement of US plans for the Iraqi economy, and the fact that the country would bear the cost of reconstruction out of its own oil revenue. This would be seen as deeply unjust by many Iraqis.

So long as the UN continues to mop up after US bombing and destruction, it will be tainted with the same brush. The UN has chosen simply to dovetail with US plans for Iraq, including support for the US-appointed Governing Council.

Suicide bombings are the extreme forms of resistance to the US occupation, but there have also been a number of peaceful protests, involving thousands of people. So President Bush's attempt to downplay this as simply another terrorist attack is denying the depth of opposition to US policies. The tragedy of the war in Iraq is that the oil interests of a handful of US-based companies have claimed the lives of Iraqis, US soldiers - and now, UN representative Sergio Vieira de Mello and other UN staff. It was an avoidable tragedy.

Vannessa Hearman, Coburg

Also see:
Scott Burchill: UN bombing far from indiscriminate
Clyde Prestowitz: How to create a terrorist state
Geoff Kitney: The PM must urge George Bush to end US occupation of Iraq

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