Mar. 21, 2003
The fearsome Sudanese nationalist leader known as the `Mahdi' was a dire threat to his own nation, neighboring Egypt and the entire Christian world, proclaimed Britain's Imperial government. The Mahdi's Dervish Army had taken Khartoum by storm and killed the saintly British proconsul of the Egyptian-ruled Sudan, Sir Charles `Chinese Gordon.'
So the British Empire sent a `coalition' army of white troops and Egyptian native units up the Nile under the command of Lord Kitchner with orders to crush the Mahdi before his calls for freedom of Muslim peoples from British imperial rule might infect the entire dark continent. The Dervishes were one of the first major Islamic resistance movements of the 19th century against European colonial occupation.
On 2 Sept, 1898, the British met the Dervish Army outside Khartoum at Omdurman. In spite of fanatical bravery by the Dervish cavalry and Red Sea tribesmen known to Rudyard Kipling as `Fuzzy-Wuzzies,' their spears and broadswords were useless against Britain's field artillery and Maxim guns(early machine guns), which mowed down the oncoming waves of enemy cavalry and infantry. The Dervishes lost 10,000 dead; 16,000 wounded. British losses were 41 dead; 382 wounded. The modern age of industrial imperialism had dawned.
The British poet Hillaire Beloc summed it up well: `whatever happens we have got/ the Maxim gun and they have not.'
Now, the newest Islamic bogeyman to threaten the west's colonial interests in the Mideast, Saddam Hussein, is about to meet his fate as once again another imperial army, this time of US, British, and Australian troops, marches up to Tigris and Euphrates to lay fire and sword upon Baghadad.
The US-British Imperial Forces met little resistance until they plunged into downtown Basra, Umm Kasr, and the Tigris River port of Nasariyah, both this weekend. Iraq's three divisions covering the southern region put up an unexpectedly stout resistance in spite of US claims they would surrender en masse. Contrary to Pentagon claims the tiny port of Umm Kasr had fallen last Friday, it was still holding out on Monday. US and British forces masked Basra, but avoided entering the city center.
Meanwhile, the US 3rd Inf Div and Marine Expeditionary forces have run into ferocious Iraqi resistance in front of Nasiriyah on the Euphrates, losing tanks, armored vehicles and nearly 80 dead and wounded. US forces are now nearing Najaf, where they have run into Republican Guard units and fought sharp tank and infantry battles. As the land battles continue, Baghdad has been subjected to an unprecedented, merciless bombardment. In an attempt to turn all physical vestiges of the Iraqi government to rubble — following the pattern established by PM Ariel Sharon in destroying Palestinian government infrastructure on the West Bank and Gaza.
For some reason, the Iraqis are not cooperating in their `liberation,' as promised by George Bush. Very shortly, expect those Iraqis resisting the invasion of their homeland to be described by the Pentagon as `terrorists.'
Thanks to secret Jordanian support, a secret front has been opened due west of Baghdad. US and British forces seized the huge H-3 airbase and the small H-2 base, both built when Britain was colonial ruler of Iraq. Light armor - notably the US Army' pet new Striker wheeled vehicles - will be airlifted in or inserted from Jordan and used to mount a brigade-sized dash 140 miles east down the main desert road to Baghdad. H-3 could also be quickly turned into a base for US air operations.
In the north, the US 101st Airborne Div is being dropped or inserted around the oil cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, both with good airfields, to prevent Turkish troops advancing southward from seizing the fields, one of the great prizes in George Bush's war. Light mobile forces can then be airlifted in to begin a southward race for Baghdad. It's unlikely Iraq's six divisions in the north will be able to resist this onslaught, bereft of any air cover and attacked on all sides by US forces and Kurdish irregulars.
By early this week, the moment of truth should be reached, as US forces encounter Iraq's best troops - Republican Guards and assorted security units - defend the two concentric rings of fortified positions drawn around Baghdad, a city of 5 million. Will President Hussein make good his vow to turn the Arab World's second city into a `Stalingrad?' As of this writing, Iraq is putting up unexpected resistance to the world's greatest power. Apparently, the intensive US psychological warfare campaign to shake the loyalty of the regime's troops and provoke an army coup, mass defections and surrenders, has failed - as did US attempts to assassinate President Hussein and his cabinet.
Iraq is also being used as a lab for many new, 21st century military technologies. Once this war is over, Iran and Syria, both of which are being named next priority targets by the group of Bush Administration neo-conservative hardliners who generated this war against Iraq and are intimately linked with Israel's rightwing Likud Party. PM Sharon of Israel recently called on the US to `march on Tehran the day after Baghdad is occupied.'
As of now Saddam Hussein's days look numbered to weeks, if not days, as attempts to kill him continue without relent. The conflict between 286 million Americans and 22 million Iraqis, half of whom are in revolt against their own government, is a war between a mastodon and a mouse, with but one conclusion, albeit a messy bloody one that will cause the US and the Mideast a decade of grief and violence.
Iraqis may still fight hard around Baghdad and from other urban areas. But the outcome of this second imperial war of the 21st Century (Afghanistan was the first) is certain. After all, the US has the Maxim gun and the Iraqis have not. And that, poet Belloc noted, is the might that makes right.
Foreign Correspondent