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July 2005, Volume 12 Nr. 24, Issue 159

Pravda

Jozef Hand-Boniakowski
  

The strands of friendship link the peoples of the United States and Iraq.   This friendship took on new qualities after the liberation of Iraq in 2003, which played an enormous role in the destinies of the peoples of southwest Asia, including the Iraq peoples. Iraq's liberation from the yoke of Saddam Hussein by the United States forces, alongside which the coalition forces from many nations fought, opened up the road of freedom and democracy development for the people of Iraq.

The people of Iraq are justifiably proud of their great democratic gains, achieved in two years of effort under the leadership of the coalition forces spearheaded by the United States. At the same time, mistakes and shortcomings occurred in deciding practical tasks involving the construction of democracy. These were justly criticized by the United States administration. This criticism was appropriate, but advantage was taken of it by enemies of freedom and democracy in the country, remnants of the routed Baathists in Iraq and left-revisionist and counter-liberation elements at home relying on the support of anti-war reaction and protest. Set back by the temporary insurgency, now in its last throes, over the country's poor domestic state of affairs and abusing the conditions of difficult reconstruction, they launched an offensive against the coalition and against the democratic system in an attempt to turn the country onto the path back to despotism and separation from freedom and democracy.

The conspiracy of insurgent forces, supported from the outside by anti-democratic reaction, created a direct threat to freedom in Iraq.  In these conditions, the United States and other coalition countries, loyal to their democratic duty and their obligations as allies and to the principles set forth in international agreements, adopted the decision to extend aid -- including the introduction of armed forces onto  Iraq's territory -- to the fraternal Iraqi people in defense of their democratic gains.

Our troops in Iraq want only one thing -- to preserve and strengthen the great friendship of our peoples, to keep inviolable Iraq's freedom, independence and sovereignty as a democratic state. It is on this freedom foundation that the relations between our countries are based.  It is this that constituted the outcome of the recent transition of power to the Iraqi government, which confirmed the friendship and fraternity of the United States and the peoples of Iraq.

Despite the active resistance of insurgent forces, the results of the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi government is the only correct path for overcoming the difficulties created by the activity of the enemies of democracy, for further constructing a democratic and free society in the Iraq under United States' leadership and for strengthening the domestic and foreign positions Iraq, an inalienable link of the world democratic system.

The American people fully approve the measures taken by the United States and it many allies to Iraq in carrying out the jointly adopted decisions and in normalizing the situation in Iraq; this normalization includes a resolute rebuff to the insurgent elements and the terrorist reaction connected with them.

We are confident that United States - Iraq friendship will remain unshaken through all tests. The American people wholeheartedly wish the  hard working Iraqi people, the cooperative peasantry and the intelligentsia of Iraq the swiftest possible overcoming of difficulties and confident and firm progress under the banner of free enterprise, along the democracy and the path of freedom.

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Do you agree with the article above?  Half the population of the United States would agree if the polls on the support for the Iraq war are any indication.  In 1968, the Soviet Union invaded the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.  The above article sounds very much like the rhetoric used during the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.  It should.  If you sympathize with the article above, then  consider this: the above article except for changes in key words, Czechoslovakia to Iraq, socialist to democratic, Soviet Union to United States, etc., appeared in the September 10, 1968, edition of the Soviet Union mouthpiece newspaper Pravda.  The word "pravda" means truth in Russian.  The translation of Pravda's original spin on the invasion of Iraq appears under the title "Indestructible Ties of Friendship" on a CNN website.  Click HERE  to go the CNN website.* 

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, responding to a recent Helen Thomas question about U.S. administration credibility in southeast Asia said, 

There are two democratically-elected governments now in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are there at their invitation. They are sovereign governments, and we are there today and we are doing all we can to train and equip their security forces so that they can provide for their own security as they move forward on a free and democratic future.

Thank you Scott and the Bush regime for becoming the 21st century version of Pravda.  You and this regime, however, are far from the truth.  As for being in Iraq and Afghanistan at the invitation of their governments?  I guess that is true if one uses the same logic the Soviet Union used in invading Czechoslovakia.  Perhaps, what this points out is that imperialist countries have similar goals and the same modus operandi, and, they equally lie.

* http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/14/1st.draft/pravda.html

© 2005 Jozef Hand-Boniakowski
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