ATTACKS FROM INSIDE AND ATTACKS FROM OUTSIDE

By Tony Sayegh


In fighting national liberation movements, a colonial occupying power often uses one or both of two strategies: 1) direct massive attacks on the population, its infra-structure and on the resistance; 2) incitement and fueling of an internal civil war.

In Vietnam, the U.S. initially tried the second strategy by dividing the Vietnamese people into South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese and by preventing promised elections to unify the country. The U.S. set up a puppet government in the South, which it armed and supplied with training and American "advisers." When this puppet government proved to be too corrupt and too weak, and when the Vietnamese in the South fought both the puppet government and the initially small U.S. military presence, the U.S. shifted more towards the first strategy by massive increase in the military presence in the South and enormous escalation of attacks on the North. Not surprising, the external attacks, in spite of their savagery, unified the Vietnamese people behind their leaders and increased their determination to defeat the U.S. aggression. A defeat that the U.S. Empire had not been used to.

Shifting to the Middle East, the U.S. initially tried to topple the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein by instigating and supporting internal rebellions by Kurds and Shiites. When these rebellions proved to be too weak and unreliable, the U.S. shifted to the direct external attack; first by economic strangulation and limited strikes and then by direct invasion. Now that the war in Iraq has been in a different phase (a fourth-generation war) for the past three years, and the U.S. military is facing a similar prospect of defeat as in Vietnam, the U.S. is shifting in favor of the attack from within. Unfortunately, the U.S. appears to be succeeding in this regard. Pundits (like Robert Fisk) who until recently dismissed the talk of a civil war in Iraq, are now openly writing and reporting on the raging civil war and ethnic cleansing going on.

Initially, the sectarian attacks on mosques and other targets were staged by Iraqi agents of Mossad and by Iraqi special operations units that report directly to the CIA. Given the fragmentation of the Iraqi resistance, the lack of a unified command and a clear political program and the sway of the Iran-backed ayatollahs on the Shi'a masses, this sectarian civil war has taken on a life of its own. If leaders of all communities and of the resistance do not rise to the occasion and put a stop to the senseless sectarian violence, Iraq will be split and the U.S. would achieve its goals by attacking from within.

Israel and the U.S. are operating along the same lines towards the Palestinians. First a puppet (Abbas) was found and built up. A "security" force was created for him, which was financed and armed by Usrael. The main function of this force is to ensure Israeli security and to crack down on all Palestinian resistance, primarily Hamas. The plan was to ignite a Palestinian civil war (the attack from within) so that Israel can finish colonizing the West Bank and impose unilaterally the borders that suit it; in other words impose a final solution on the Palestinians.It is no accident, that as soon as all the Palestinian factions reached agreement on a modified "prisoners document," and as soon as the attack from within failed (for the time being), Israel launched its massive attack on Gaza. Like all attacks from outside, this Israeli attack has increased support for Hamas, increased the steadfastness of the Palestinian and their determination to resist. In other words, the attack from outside has proved to be counter-productive from the Usraeli viewpoint. For this reason, it is only a matter of time before the first option is resorted to again. This is the reason why Abbas was allowed to return to Ramallah. One of his first tasks was to meet with the U.S. Consul in occupied Jerusalem. Abbas has again started making the same demands of the Palestinian resistance, which are the Usraeli demands. As long as the external attacks are going on, Abbas is marginalized and it would be very hard for him to implement what Usrael wants from him. However, if there is a cease-fire and calming of the situation, keep your eyes open for Abbas trying to implement a coup and an attack from within.