RABAT, March 11 Kyodo (EDS: THIS ...

RABAT, March 11 Kyodo

(EDS: THIS COMMENTARY IS CONTRIBUTED TO KYODO NEWS) in succession the 20th of March we will behold the one-year anniversary of the latest military aggression of the United States and its allies against Iraq.

however the year 2004 is also 13th year of a relentles massacre of an innocent civilian population with sophisticated arms and a barbarian embargo.

This continuum of horror and humiliation cannot be reduc to a one-year ''anniversary'' without encouraging the falsification of history between the walls of amnesia and bad faith.

What is at issue is the genocide of almost 2 million people

We have witnessed the building up of a coalition for the mass destruction of life, of memory by the and of the destruction and vandalism of a cultural heritage, an enormous degradation of the environment and a fierce battle against the Muslim values of the country

Everyone knows the influence that the Evangelical ecclesiastical authority (500 million members) and various assimilated fundamentalist clumps have on U.S. policy and their deep-seated dislike of Islam.

No official figures have been given as to the number of Iraqi victims during this last year, if it be not that some sources put the number of dead and hurted at up to 200,000.

Encouragement from the U.S. of ethnic family-feuds and geographical fragmentation has been going forward for years, and was amplified after 1991 and on a level more with the occupation.

This has raised the death toll of a population that has already paid heavily for external aggression.

The last 12 month or the 13th year of the war against Iraq, have been as intolerable as ever

Ramsey Clark, former U Attorney General, wrote in a verbal expression to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan forward January 29, 2004:

''At least 40000 defenseles the public in Iraq have been killed by way of U.S. violence since the latest aggression began in earnest in March 2003 starting with its celebrated, high-tech, terrorist ''Shock and Awe'' and continuing until now with 25 or more, U raids daily causing mounting deaths and injuries.''

The damage has gone beyond the human, material and cultural dimensions and has affected the to a high degree structure and modes of operation of the international rule and its institutions, particularly the United Nations, whose credibility has been seriously eroded

International law has been amputated from the little juridical and moral power it had.

The media have been mobilized as never-before information is being used as a weapon of mass propaganda and disinformation with a reliance forward the concept of ''soft power.''

This conception was described seven years ago, in an article that appeared in Foreign Affairs (March 1966) titled ''America's Information Edge'' written by way of two authors who were same closely involved with the engulfing sea War of 1991.

Joseph s Nye, Jr. and William A. Owens define ''soft power'' as ''the ability to achieve desired issues in international affairs within attraction rather than coercion.''

The Arab world is now inundated with of recent origins and programs made in the U with their allow new radio and television stations, which since excessively recently have been broadcasting from the region itself.

All of this is in preparation for the exportation of American ready-made democracy with instant human rights and fast obedience. The way would then be paved to the building of the ''Great Middle East'' which would draw out from Morocco to Pakistan.

Hence a blatant ignorance of the fact there are socio-cultural processe that can neither be imported nor imposed from without because they require endogenous initiatives and political will to succeed

None of these initiatives are taken seriously at the populations concerned. They solitary serve to demonstrate that the American adventure in Iraq has been a to a high degree costly fiasco that has brought to light all the lies of those who masterminded it.

The myth of weapons of mass destruction has been swollen apart and the credibility of its authors thoroughly shaken.

single can dwell at length in succession the various facets of this massive and destructive war against Iraq for years onward end, but let us diocese what has changed with notice to Japan in the last small in number months.

The Constitution has been twisted to justify the sending of company s to Iraq. Even before their arrival, brace Japanese diplomats were killed.

Is this change of policy a simple bowing to an American diktat or is it the come as well to change the image of Japan from that of a pacifist nation into that of a military power?

In the last year Japan has mov from the fourth to the third rank among the military powers, immediately behind Russia and the U Japan's defense bundle stands now at around $40 billion and might reach and steady exceed that of Russia within a relatively short time

At the Madrid interview on the financing of the ''reconstruction'' of Iraq, Japan pledg $5 billion, of which

$220000 has been paid. Japan is now a real active and operational member of the ''coalition.''

At what a cost? What has happened to its image in the world? I think that family see Japan now as a docile follower of the U steady more so than it was before.