THE last US army combat brigade pulled out of Iraq on Thursday morning, allegedly bringing to an end all US combat operations.
These have been taking place daily for the past seven years and claimed the lives of up to a 100,000 Iraqi men, women and children, and more than 4,000 US occupation troops.
The shock and awe invasion tactic, the destruction of the entire infrastructure of the country, its water, electricity, universities and health care systems, with the exception of the oil ministry which went untouched even by a splinter; the robbery of priceless artefacts from the Baghdad museum, the destruction of the historic site of Babylon to make way for a military base; the organisation of the hanging of president Saddam Hussein by a lynch mob of his long-time enemies; the atrocities of Abu Ghraib, and countless other unknown Abu Ghraibs; the gassing and shooting of the people of Fallujah and the eviction and transformation of at least four million Iraqis into refugees living in Syria, Jordan and throughout the Arab world – these deeds by the vanguard of western bourgeois civilisation, the United States, will never be forgotten by the Iraqi and Arab peoples, and also by the working people of the world who opposed this imperialist war as an oil war from the moment that it was hatched after the Al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers.
These deeds also make certain that the Iraqi masses will not rest until all of the occupation forces have been sent packing from their country, along with the puppet leaders that they brought with them, and a revolutionary government has been established.
The fact that the US army has been defeated in Iraq is testimony to the revolutionary character of the Iraqi people and their refusal to tolerate the occupier, that intended to possess all of their oil and gas wealth.
The refugees will now begin to return and the liberation struggle will erupt with renewed force.
This will send the remaining 50,000 US advisers back to the US, along with the puppets who came in their baggage trains and to whom the government of Iraq, on behalf of the United States, was handed by the US colonial administrator Bremer.
The first puppet premier was Allawi, who supported the destruction of Fallujah and its people, and then Maliki, who won a rigged election, and then waged a war against the anti-imperialist Shi’ite masses in central Iraq and in the city of Basra.
The US army has begun its total withdrawal just three years after the British army was run out of Basra to their base in the Basra airport in 2007, and from there out of Iraq completely, and into Afghanistan, in 2009.
However, the struggle against the US occupiers is not over. A further 6,000 support troops will be in Iraq until the end of the month.
Some 50,000 US occupation troops will remain until the end of 2011 to advise Iraqi forces and protect US interests.
State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said the US has a trillion dollar investment to protect in the country. The pullout has coincided with the arrival of James Jeffrey, the new US ambassador to Iraq, who presented his diplomatic credentials on Wednesday to President Jalal Talabani.
Many are now comparing the plight of the US remnants now hanging on in Iraq and their puppets to the US advisers and the South Vietnamese collaborators who were left behind in Vietnam after Nixon was forced to withdraw the main US forces.
They did not last long, and neither will the US remnants and puppets who remain in Iraq today.