“When our government drops bombs on other people round the world, we are them and they are us.”
The ‘Stop The War Coalition’ called a rally in Trafalgar Square on Saturday 11th January 2020, a week after the United States assassinated Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian General who commanded the Quds Force in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, as tension mounted in the Middle East over what some view as an international war crime.
Among the speakers was British-Iraqi rapper Lowkey, who outlined five ways in which Iraq has been a cash cow for the American military-industrial complex, beginning with the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, and ending with the current tension. During that time the US military has grown in size so that it costs more than the next seven world militaries combined – the largest that humanity has ever known.
Companies like Haliburton, BAe, Lockheed Martin, and some of the other largest corporations on the planet all made money out of the 2003 Iraq war. After the extra-judicial killing of Soleimani the share value of military companies rose.
While Trump describes Soleimani as a monster, Lowkey reminds us that Bush Snr, Bush Jnr and Bill Clinton all bombed Iraq, and President Obama dropped 26,000 bombs, mostly on Northern Iraq. So, he asks, who are the real monsters?
