Iraq's Declaration of Independence

Columnist Anwaar Hussain of the Pak Tribune, now based in the United Arab Emirates, has a reverence for some of the heavyweights of Western Literature; Shakespeare and Jonathan Swift among the canon. He also has a keen appreciation for Enlightenment thinkers of revolutionary America, chiefly Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson.

The Bush administration is interested in regime change in many parts of the world, specifically the Middle East, so the American Empire may at least have serious leverage over oil distribution for Europe and Japan, and now the world’s fastest growing consumer society – China. However, if regime change is needed anywhere, it’s the United States – and immediately.

Most Americans make no connection with the efforts of both Thomas Paine – Common Sense and The Rights of Man, and Thomas Jefferson – The Declaration of Independence. The spirit of 1776 is now concealed under so many layers of fast-food lasagna as to be unrecognizable by the culture that pretends to evangelize these worthy virtues to the rest of the world.

An empire is not in the business of political liberation; the overriding purpose is to always secure coveted resources, no matter the cost of human life. The American Empire occupies Iraq for oil and not democracy. This wretched disgrace is too obvious to disregard.

Pakistaini writer Anwar Hussain does not ignore the plight of the Iraqi people. Instead, he invokes the same standards Americans once applied to their British masters:

“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.”
William Shakespeare

"Once a victim of Britain's subjugation herself, America has risen to become the usurper of Iraq. Just a few wordings change in the American Declaration of Independence, makes it a wishful yet equally fine Iraqi Declaration of Independence. The present American Administration stands answerable to their founding fathers who wrote that lofty document. For comparison to the American Declaration of Independence,


Iraq’s Declaration of Independence

And, therefore, here it is--The unanimous Declaration of the entire Iraqi nation.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to break the bonds of tyranny which have enchained them brutally, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to declare their independence.

We, the Iraqi nation, hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, like that of our previous master Saddam Hussain’s did, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Though prudence, indeed, dictated that Governments long established should not have been changed for false and sham causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. Our’s was, nevertheless, changed for spurious and wicked reasons and our will having been taken for granted.

Now under these new masters, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce us under absolute Despotism, it is our right, it is our duty, to throw off such masters, and to provide new guards for our future security -- Such has been the patient sufferance of us Iraqis; and such is now the necessity which constrains us to alter our present state of serfdom. -- The history of the present master is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over Iraqi nation. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

Our present master, The United States of America, has refused its Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

The United States of America has forbidden its Representatives in Iraq to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till its Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, it has utterly neglected to attend to them.

The United States of America has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large provinces of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the forthcoming sham Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

The United States of America has dissolved representative political parties and heroic Iraqi resistance, repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness its invasions on the rights of the people.

The United States of America has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing its Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

The United States of America has made some sycophant Iraqis dependent on its Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

The United States of America has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and plunder our resources.

The United States of America declared war on us without there being any provocation on our part, subjected us to a brutal occupation and has kept among us, Standing Armies without our Consent.

The United States of America has affected to render its Military independent of and superior to the Iraqi Civil Power.

The United States of America, in the past as well as now, has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our religion, culture and unacknowledged by our laws; giving its Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting their troops, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they have, and are, committing on the Inhabitants of Iraq:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For killing our men, women and children mercilessly and depriving us in all cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing all our laws and attempting to establish therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging it’s Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into all countries that it has designs for:

For taking away our dignity, violating our most valuable ethos, and desecrating our places of worship:

For suspending our own Legislature and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

The United States of America aims to pillage our resources and has, thus far, ravaged our lands, burnt our oil wells, destroyed our towns and devastated the lives of our people.

The United States of America is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of civilized nations.

The United States of America has constrained our fellow Citizens to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

The United States of America has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions we, the Iraqi nation, have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A master, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our World brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by the United States of America to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of our circumstances. We have appealed to their collective sense of justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our humanity to disavow these usurpations. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.

We, therefore, the entire Iraqi nation, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of Iraq, solemnly publish and declare, that the Iraqi nation is, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent Nation; that we are absolved from all Allegiance to the United States of America, and that all political connection between us and the United States of America, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a Free and Independent State, we have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to other brotherly nations our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

And till the time this humble declaration does fall on receptive ears we, hereby, remind our present masters that "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that"

The Signers of the Declaration and the new Iraqi state they represent.
Representatives of all Iraqi Arabs, Kurds, Turcoman and Assyrians of all religions including Islam, Christianity and others.