By Melville Cooke

Yu eena me lan'

Quite illegal

- Peter Tosh

As the United States and, more recently, Israel, have found out, colonisation is not as easy to do as it once was. And with howls for an enquiry into the performance of the Israeli army, the mechanised behemoth which has failed to roll over Hezbollah whose latest long-range weaponry is unguided World War II missiles, as well as falling ratings for Bush and Co. as the Iraqi resistance defends home soil and infighting rises, the effects are being felt in the respective home countries.

For make no mistake about it: As long as the dead are overwhelmingly on the other side, the uneven conflict is over quickly, a puppet government installed and the press trumpets peace, those who live in the aggressor nations generally care very little about mass murder in the name of democracy or combating terrorism.

The United Nations is helpless. The protests of persons around the world, as happened ahead of the invasion of Iraq (those are officially the largest protests ever), are futile. The opinions of opinion makers are printed and spoken in vain. The only thing which stands between the aggressor nations, as the United States and Israel are, and dominance of the countries invaded at will in the true spirit of 'white is right', is a guerrilla movement. With technology, whether it be Winchester rifles against the Native Americans or in these times of 'impressive' mass slaughter, cluster bombs, always heavily on the side of the invader (they do not attempt to invade countries where conventional armies have even a glimmer of a chance, hence 'negotiations' with North Korea), defence rests entirely on a few determined people with small arms.

To Draw is to win

The good news is that a draw, for them, is a win. And so far the Iraqi resistance (how can you be an 'insurgent' against an invading army?) and Hezbollah have been battling to a draw.

Outright victories in wars of colonisation by white nations on the coloured of the earth have been all too rare. At the launch of his book, The Logic & Historical Significance of the Haitian Revolution & the Cosmological Roots of Haitian Freedom, in late 2005, UWI, Mona, lecturer Clinton Hutton emphasised the 1803 Battle of Vertiers in which the Haitians soundly defeated the French, leading directly to their declaration of Independence in January 1804 (and eternal damnation to punishment by the white nations which can ill-afford to have their myth of innate superiority punctured by a successful revolt against slavery). Then there was the Battle of Adowah in 1896, in which the Ethiopians defeated the attempted Italian colonisers (on All Fools Day, no less). They retreated to (where else?) Eritrea.

At the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, the French colonials got whupped by the Vietnamese and in the book How Far We Slaves Have Come, the published speeches of Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro from the former's visit to Cuba in 1991, there is extensive reference to the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in 1987 as a Cuban victory over South African forces, having direct influence on the freeing of Nelson Mandela from prison.

In the future

Years from now there will be a totally different picture painted of the current situation in Iraq and along the border of Israel and Lebanon, just as how Rambo has managed to single-handedly defeat the Vietnamese, years after they booted the U.S. out of Saigon in 1975.

The draw, which is a victory in itself, will be swept under the carpet of rewritten history, but I am sure those in the respective countries will not forget.

Bullet no tun back

- Sizzla

Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.