Democracy in Iraq

Posted by Geoff Beck on February 06, 2005, 01:06 PM | #

Phil:

Reading the UK press reveals Britain is much more skeptical about the Iraq war than the USA, though the reasons for the discontent are rooted differently than mine.

Regardless, if you lived in the USA you would be forever bombarded with pro-war rhetoric from Foxnews, talk radio, and popular conservative websites. Much of this rhetoric is bloodthirsty, blinkered, and alarmist.

On the other hand the mainstream left-wing press’ criticism of the war is timid. (Guess, who owns both the left and right wing press?) Beyond that fact any criticism of the war is met with by angry howls of traiter, coddler of terrorists, and etc… The most effective charge is “if you don’t support the war you’re putting the knife in our soldier’s back”. Well, patriotism is a two-edged sword.

Anyway, this rhetoric fills the airwaves. Yes, the supposed triumph of the election is just another reason for the triumphalists and empire builders to perform their turkey strut.

Welcome back, Phil.

Posted by Phil Peterson on February 06, 2005, 02:27 PM | #

Well said, Geoff.

Its a strange kind of patriotism that requires one to celebrate the destruction of one’s own country (open borders, mass immigration from every conceivable country on earth) and the spilling of blood of one’s own for someone else’s country (Iraq - for reasons I needn’t repeat). We live in strange times.

Anyway, its good to be back.

Phil

Posted by Effra on February 06, 2005, 03:03 PM | #

Most big wars are fought for more than one reason. Undoubtedly taking out the most formidable (albeit not very) remaining potential enemy of Israel was one privy motive for America’s Iraq Attaq. Four out of five US Congressmen get campaign money from Jewish lobbies.
Some legislators believe the gallant-little-friend-of-the-West line about the Zionist entropy, I mean entity.

Although Iraq’s armed forces had been degraded by war with Iran and a decade of US-imposed sanctions, and its nuclear power plant was blitzed by Israel’s bombers a decade before that, Sharon wanted a proxy war to give himself a leg-up with Israeli voters before returning to negotiate and make concessions to the Pals. (BTW, Mossad, Israel’s external intelligence and security agency, advised against an Iraqi invasion, fearing that the resultant power vacuum would not be as good for the Jews as a neutered Saddam. They may well turn out to have been right.)

However, the USA also had its own motives. On the point of being kicked out of its bases in Saudi—whose royals were terrified of the Wahhabi agitation focusing on the “blasphemy” of allowing the Great Satan to squat in the Prophet’s backyard—the Pentagon had long considered Iraq the optimal alternative site. In some ways it fits better the strategy of sealing Russia’s southern salient and encircling China: e.g. by making nice with India, Pakistan and the ex-Soviet “stans”. Iraq is closer to the Yellow Peril, and 14 huge bases have duly been staked out.

Knocking off Saddam gave the relocation exercise some credibility, mitigating the embarrassingly non-democratic and Islamic coloration of most of the other encirclement countries. The Iraq Attaq could be sold as “unfinished business” from Gulf War I—we gave the sonofabitch time to mend his ways, but did he hell—and the fact that Iraq had long since ceased to pose a threat to any other country could be buried in visuals of citizens hailing their Yankee liberators.

When they didn’t, the rationales became rather harder. For public consumption, there’s “we broke it, we gotta fix it” when all else fails. In semi-private, the reverse-domino theory is trotted out: if Iraq embraces “freedom”, so will all the other Ay-rabs. On verra. Meanwhile American power consoles itself with the vast sums awarded to the President’s corporate friends to clean up the mess he made. The families of dead GIs don’t fare so well, and many of the live ones will return broken in physical or mental health—but that’s the profit system, buddy.

Posted by Phil Peterson on February 06, 2005, 03:40 PM | #

Effra,

Insightful comments. Somehow your suggested logic of that war would seem to be completely defeated if the US has to pull out completely because that is what Iraqi public opinion and the newly elected Shi’ite Government demands.

Posted by DissidentMan on February 07, 2005, 02:12 PM | #

On the other hand the mainstream left-wing press’ criticism of the war is timid.
Its also often wrong. The leftists have chosen to pin the blame for the war on strawmen. This behaviour, I contend, creates useful camouflage for the war’s real instigators. Therefore, to some extent, the ostensibly anti-war left is partially responsible for the war’s continuation.

About leftists blaming strawmen I have often heard them saying that the US administration is worried about oil running out and is securing a future supply…If that’s true then let me point out that the Iraqi people will not simply give their oil to America. As long as they think American’s want their oil they’ll keep blowing up the pipelines. Furthermore I am under the distinct impression that many of the people in the Bush administration couldn’t care less about America’s future propseperity. It’s not clear how, in the modern age, an aggressive war against a far away land could pay genunie material dividends.

Posted by Svigor on February 07, 2005, 02:29 PM | #

I think there are a couple of answers to the “is Israel better off?” question that people rarely address:

1) Israel abhors secular nationalistic opponents, and prefers radical Islamist opponents (the Mossad gave succor to Hamas for just that reason - the PLO was a bit too secular and nationalistic for Israel’s tastes).  The “why” of this is more open to interpretation.  I think it’s because Israel knows it will have an easier time courting sympathy and aid in the west if it has a radical towelheaded religious fanatic to hold up as boogeyman than a secular nationalistic boogeyman.  It’s also easier to make peace with the former, a possibility which induces terror in some Israelis.

2) this is somewhat similar to 1: some Zionists feel that for Israel, in the Arab world worse is better.  The more chaos in the ME, the more need for permanent American adventure, and thus the more security for Israel (at least from an Eretz Israel p.o.v.)

Posted by Svigor on February 07, 2005, 02:34 PM | #

BTW, Mossad, Israel’s external intelligence and security agency, advised against an Iraqi invasion, fearing that the resultant power vacuum would not be as good for the Jews as a neutered Saddam. They may well turn out to have been right.

Is the Mossad only an external security agency?  If so I wasn’t aware of that.  Is it like the U.S., with the Mossad as Israel’s C.I.A. and Shin Bet as her F.B.I?

Posted by Svigor on February 07, 2005, 02:40 PM | #

Btw Effra I think you’re spot on about the “non-Zionist” causes for GW II, although I’d go a bit further and throw in the “what to do with our Cold War footing” angle.  There’s nothing like an endless War on Terror to replace a Cold War and keep the military-industrial complex happy.

I don’t think it’s all about oil, but I think oil has it’s place.  Which is easier to bargain with, a country you’ve occupied or one you haven’t?

Posted by Effra on February 07, 2005, 09:54 PM | #

Svigor: Shin Bet is the domestic, FBI-like agency.

Oil was doubtless a major consideration that got Big Business on side for the Iraq Attaq—“think how you guys will clean up in the aftermath, doing deals with a compliant government”.

But the prime movers of this irrelevant feint away from pursuing OBL were the neocons and the military industrial complex (MIC) of Halliburton et al. rather than Exxon or Mobil. The neocons included America’s Amen Corner for Zionism, who had been plotting the downfall of Saddam since the mid-1990s; others, primarily the gentile element, are inveterate “national greatness” warmongers, believing (rightly, I think) that the propositional nation would fall apart in low-intensity racial strife if it did not have some continuous external “threat” to keep it glued together under warfare/welfare discipline.

Once Soviet communism collapsed, “Terror” or “Islamofascism” had to be promoted to fill the bogeyman role. (Previously, China was briefly tried out under Clinton, but is too obviously isolationist to convince.) The MIC required a reason to go on sucking at the public tit, though what ICBMs and Star Wars have to do with pacifying urban guerillas in Baghdad or Teheran is anyone’s guess. Luckily, to the typical US voting taxpayer “defense” is all one and any expensive kit may help “keep us safe”. Closing the country’s own frontiers would help more, but there are far too many GOP-backing corporations who need cheap immigrant labour to permit that.

Posted by Phil Peterson on February 08, 2005, 05:57 PM | #

“others, primarily the gentile element, are inveterate “national greatness” warmongers, believing (rightly, I think) that the propositional nation would fall apart in low-intensity racial strife if it did not have some continuous external “threat” to keep it glued together under warfare/welfare discipline.”

You’ve hit the bull’s eye. This really is the fundamental thing. Because there isn’t a single factor left that could DEFINE an American, the only way to define America is as being in opposition to something. Try and keep an abstract thing together by focussing on an asbtract thing - “International Terrorism!”, “They hate our freedoms”, “DEMOCRACY!” and the rest of that humbug.

You would enjoy reading this piece:

http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/22/