Seven Oaks Magazine.

March marks the end of the second year of the U.S.-U.K. invasion and occupation of Iraq. What’s the situation?

March 4 the Italian government negotiated the release of a kidnapped Italian journalist. Accompanied by Italian security she was being driven to the Baghdad airport. The US military were informed of her release.

The car passed through all checkpoints, then within 700 metres of the airport U.S. soldiers opened fire. The secret service agent who negotiated the hostage release, a personal acquaintance of Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi, immediately threw himself over the journalist. He was shot in the head. Berlusconi, Bush’s closest ally in Europe, was outraged, as were the Italian people who overwhelmingly oppose support for the war on Iraq.

We know, from Canada ’s disputes with the U.S. , when you disagree with Washington you’re treated as an “enemy”; when you kowtow you’re treated as a “sucker”.

March 3 Dr. Khalid Shaykli, a high official in the Iraqi health ministry, told a press conference that an Iraqi medical team, investigating Falluja, definitively concluded the U.S. used mustard gas, nerve gas, and napalm – all prohibited by international treaties. The US leveled Falluja, a city of 300,000 that now is uninhabited and uninhabitable.

March 6 a South African mass circulation paper reported 30 000 mercenaries are in Iraq. Mercenaries make-up the third largest contingent of fighters. Former members of the elite units of the apartheid-era South African military form the bulk of the mercenaries.

How much of this news do we hear?

The reporter for U.S. National Public Radio just left Iraq criticizing most journalists for staying in their hotels, going out only to U.S. military press conferences. The Italian journalist, whom the US troops apparently tried to murder on her way to the airport, was an exception. So is Dahr Jamail. At great personal risk, he reports first-hand. Now on a speaking tour he brings his eye-witness news to Vancouver March 18, at a forum in St. Andrew’s-Wesley Church.

Yes Iraqis came out to vote in the elections, but they didn’t come out to vote for continuing the US occupation. The popular opposition to occupation is intense and huge. “The US is losing the war in Iraq , both politically and militarily,” says Walden Bello. A prominent figure in the global anti-war movement, Bello is a winner of the Right Livelihood Award presented annually in the Swedish parliament and well-known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”. He will speak in Vancouver with Dahr Jamail.

“In the US military itself, more and more troops, even in active duty, along with their families, are speaking out against the war,” says Bello. One sign is the major rally being organized by soldiers and the families of soldiers at a huge US military base on March 19. This is the day of world-wide protest against war and occupation.

You might think Bush and Co. were sinking deep enough in Iraq. But Seymour Hersch, America ’s top investigative reporter, has published leaked plans for an invasion of Iran.

The US is also saber-rattling in East Asia. Japan and the US have agreed that the Taiwan Strait is their “common security objective.” Japan also agreed to serve a greater role as a partner with the US in Asia and beyond, including Star Wars.

To encircle China the US wants to halt European arms sales to Beijing. Bush complains new military technologies will give China a counter-weight to US aircraft carriers which the US plans to use around Taiwan.

As more countries feel the danger of US attack, will they join together in a common front? Many Latin American countries are developing closer economic relations with China precisely with this in mind.

These are dark times. But we must not overlook the lesson from the tsunami. Millions around the world, Canadians very much among them, immediately extended heartfelt and practical support. This remarkable resurgence of the very best in the human spirit shamed governments, whose first responses were hesitant and stingy. I was reminded of February 15, 2003 when tens of millions of people demonstrated against the invasion of Iraq. People foresaw the human catastrophe that would follow: 100,000 killed Iraqis according to the Lancet, the British medical journal.

Our challenge is clear. We must find sustained ways to have the best in the human spirit overcome the worst, the life-affirming overcome the life-destroying. From Vancouver to Iraq to China, we need to cooperate to defeat the latest attempt of a single country to rule over and ruin the lives of 6 billion people.

For more information on the March 18-19 anti-war activities in Vancouver, check out the StopWar.ca website.