Tag: Iraq

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The Iraq Dollar Auction

Wow. I missed the shocking news — Saddam Hussein hated the United States and tried to think of ways to hurt it. ABC news with exclusive audio tape!

I saw that ABC News item. It wasn’t “news”. It was a tape they had acquired which did not provide any new information that was not already out there and widely known. In fact, the story largely substantiated the position that Saddam was not a real threat, and had no connection with Al Qaeda.

If you are watching the news, I presume you are also aware of the fact that Iraq is now near full civil war, and that the occupation is generating more new terrorists every day than Osama could have wished for in his wildest dreams, and that large Republican-connected corporations have been gleefully lining their own pockets while mismanaging the rebuilding of that pathetic little country, and that whenever a competent official emerges from the U.S. occupation administration, he says something truthful and is sacked.

I always find it strange that nobody seems to be demanding the simplest and most obvious measure of accountability from the Bush administration: tell us how long it will take and how much it will cost and how many people will die before you have what you promised us: a peaceful democratic Arab state in the Mid-east. So far, it is estimated to be over $20,000 per American household. How much would you say is too much, and how long, and how many lives, would you say is too many? $50,000? $100,000? And how long should the bulk of the U.S. military be tied up in Iraq? 10 years? 20 years? 50 years? Any reasonable person would want to know those things before committing to a course of action that will be almost impossible to extricate ourselves from, with decency and integrity.

Well, we know why nobody from the Bush administration will give us any kind of plan. If they did, it would immediately be apparent that the plan has failed. By saying “nobody can say how long it would take” and “it undermines the troops to insist that we have a clue about what we are doing and how much progress we are making” Bush can hope that some miracle will come along and save his ass from the embarrassment of having to admit, “we had no real idea, when we went in, of how difficult it was going to be to get out”. It’s a win-win proposition. If things go badly, it’s because we haven’t waited long enough. If things eventually go well, we knew it would.

Will anyone admit that Bush doesn’t know what he got into and has no clue how to get out? We are now into what John Nash (“Beautiful Mind”) called a “dollar auction”. You are bidding on a dollar under rules that require you to pay out even if you lose the auction. So, when you reach and pass the full “value” of the dollar, you have to keep bidding, because otherwise you still pay but get nothing. Yes, Viet Nam exactly.

Doesn’t matter to him, does it? He’ll be out cashing out in a couple years. He doesn’t actually receive suitcases full of cash from all those corporations and billionaires he has served so diligently the last six years… until he gets out of office. And then watch the payback– it should be absolutely glorious! No individual in the history of the U.S. has transferred so much wealth to so many investors, shareholders, and corporate leaders. The oil industry alone should be falling over themselves to reward him– look at the deal they got in the Gulf of Mexico!– but the pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, credit institutions,– they’ll all be rushing forward to thank the man who did so incredibly much for their profit margins (while doing virtually nothing for the economy as a whole or people who actually work for a living).

Meanwhile, an adult will have to take over the presidency and sit there and think: how long do we let this shit go on before we admit it was a huge mistake? And stop bidding? And the same adult will have to do something adult about paying bills around here. I don’t think anything Bush has done is quite as remarkably, shamelessly, outrageously childish as the handing over of billions and billions of dollars in national debt to the next generation. Some of his most fanatical devotees compare him to Jesus Christ, and they have something there: I’m watching this man walk on water right now. It’s amazing.

It’s hard to call an administration “corrupt” when it does, openly and shamelessly, what other administrations would do only in secret. The lobbyists now enter through the front door, proudly and glibly, and meetings that used to be hidden are now simply “secret”. The Bush administration actually invites corporations to write legislation for themselves. The same people who defend this government would be horrified at the idea of a labour union writing it’s own contract or a teenager making his own house rules or an actor directing his own movie– and perhaps should be. But that’s the way the Bush administration operates.

There are ideological differences, which can be argued endlessly, but then there’s simple competency issues, of which a clear vision eventually emerges.

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Tony Blair Bans Military Parades, Medals, and War Movies

According to the CBC, Tony Blair is finally going to do something I can agree with. He is going to ban the glorification of terrorism. From now on, it will be illegal to “glorify”– that’s the word they use: “glorification”– acts of terrorism.

First of all, let’s describe terrorism. Acts of violence with the aim of achieving a political or social objective? Violence directed at civilians? Violence used to further a religious cause? Let’s get the definition straight, because we don’t want the British occupation of the Middle East at the close of World War II to be classified as terrorism, because then, I suppose, we would have to ban “Lawrence of Arabia”, or “Cast a Giant Shadow”. And we don’t want the first American gulf war to be classified as terrorism, just because

What about violence for the purpose of obtaining material benefits or economic power? Like the U.S. inspired coup in Guatemala in 1956? And does this mean that General Pinochet of Chile will really be arrested and held the next time he visits Britain? Is it unsafe for Mr. Henry Kissinger to spend a weekend frolicking in London? “In Flanders Fields” glorifies acts of violence by British and Canadian conscripts in World War I. What was so different about those acts of violence, to further the aims of the British government of the day? That they were deceived by an elected government into believing that killing Germans had some kind of divine purpose?

Military parades essentially glorify the capacity of the government to inflict violence upon various enemies of the realm. Good. Let’s ban them, along with “Top Gun”, “Ballad of the Green Berets”, and “The Dirty Dozen”. Can we arrest Oliver North now, since he supported and “glorified” the activities of the Contras in Nicaragua when they were trying to overthrow the Sandinista government?

How about anyone involved in the Reagan administration’s support of — holy cow!– Osama Bin Laden, and the insurgency against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan in the 1980’s?

Bust Margaret Thatcher for her passionate romance with British military might in the Falklands?

It’s a magic bus. Let’s all get on board.

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The Cost of the Iraq War

According to Harper’s Magazine, the projected cost of the Iraqi adventure will come out to about $20,000 per U.S. household.

That’s just the financial cost, of course. The cost in lives and limbs is far, far greater.

As with many large human enterprises that end in disaster, the actual costs are never known or described at the time the enterprise is embarked upon, because if they were, no sane person would approve of the plan. If George Bush were running for president this year and he promised to start a war that would cost every household $20,000, I don’t think most people would vote for him.

I’ve heard it argued that most people felt, at the time, that attacking Iraq was the right thing to do. That is why the Democrats– especially Hillary Clinton– sound so anemic right now. They can’t really take Bush to task about this– they voted for it too.

Were there reasonable people around who knew that attacking and occupying Iraq was going to cost so much at the time George Bush set out to do it. The answer is clearly yes. Not George Bush, no. Not anyone on his staff– except, dimly, Colin Powell– no. Not anyone in the Republican party, no. And, it is clear, almost nobody in the Democratic Party, which is why so few Democrats are now able to make hay of the horrible consequences of the stupid decision to invade and occupy Iraq.

But a lot of other people, including Canadians and Europeans knew that it was a bad idea. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien– probably not sure if he was doing the right thing at the time– declined to participate because a large majority of Canadians didn’t think it was a good idea. They were right.

The Americans are in a massive, unholy mess right now in Iraq. Bush keeps on insisting that there is light at the end of the tunnel, but I think that light is coming from a directorship at a large oil company after 2008, or the reflection off Karl Rove’s fleshy forehead.

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Guilty With an Explanation

Saddam – “guilty, with an explanation.” Why is he on trial in a country that has no government, in the hands of a country that has no legal authorization to hold him, before a judge who was never appointed by any legitimate, democratically elected authority?

Why is Saddam not being tried by the International Court of Justice in The Hague? Because the Americans cannot manipulate the outcome of that court, and because the World Court will not sentence anybody to death. But that is where he should be tried.

And the Americans don’t support the World Court because there are few Americans who could actually be put on trail for war crimes.

If there was ever a particular action by the Americans for which one could say they will probably be sorry for it later, this is it. The court in Baghdad has no legitimacy in the eyes of anyone but the Americans. Saddam is a confirmed psychopath and mass-murderer. The U.S. does not need to manipulate the outcome of this trial, but by pulling strings it will forever raise questions in the minds of people everywhere– especially Moslems– about whether he was ever really quite as bad as the Americans claim he is. Someone will say, the evidence was planted by the Americans. And a reasonable Arab might just nod and say, “could be.”

[2011-05: I was wrong about that. Nobody, even in the Arab or Moslem world, gives a damn about Saddam Hussein. I should have realized that.]

 

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George W. Bush’s “What is ‘is’?”

I never heard Bush use the word “wrong” yet. Or “sorry”. Conservatives can be assholes at times, just as liberals can, but they are never more assholeish than in the rank hypocrisy of their horrible outrage that Bill Clinton lied about Monica Lewinsky, while they blithely look the other way as Bush lies about Iraq.

Bush could argue that he was misinformed– so I would accept a simple “we were wrong” or “I was wrong” or “we were mistaken and we’ll try not to be mistaken the next time we talk you into invading a foreign country and killing 100,000 people”.

Not a chance. Bush acts as if he never claimed there were weapons of mass destruction, or that they were mere days away from deployment. He acts as if he never said that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. He acts as if his office never heaped scorn and ridicule upon those who believed that the UN inspection process was working reasonably well.

That is deceit. It is dishonest. It is as slimy as any “what is ‘is'” from the lips of Bill Clinton.

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Snipers and Lynch

Sniper teams from the West Virginia State Police were positioned along the route of Private Lynch’s motorcade, and staff from the state’s Division of Natural Resources patrolled the Little Kanawha River, which flows beside the park where Private Lynch appeared. NY Times, July 22, 2003

This was for a personal appearance by Jessica Lynch, the hero of the mighty war against Saddam Hussein. Jessica Lynch single-handedly fought off an entire division of well-armed fanatic Iraqi Mujahideen before repairing her Hummer while it was being sabotaged by a Greenpeace activist and driving a wounded Shiite cleric to the hospital where she set up a foundation to care for his children.

I mean, Jessica Lynch, whose truck rolled over and who was injured and taken to a hospital where she was treated well until the marines were able to rescue her and take her to an American hospital where she could be treated even better.

I like Jessica Lynch. She is on my “Not Sold Out” list because she refused to cooperate with the fanatic capitalist media exploiters who wanted to embellish her story just a little.

But they didn’t need to embellish this part. Yes, there were police snipers positioned along the motorcade route because, I suppose, some absolutely idiotic administrator with the West Virginia State Police actually believed that Saddam Hussein might try to assassinate Jessica Lynch.

[Added December 2003:]

Have you gone to see Peter Pan yet? You ought to, really.

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CNN Duality

“Is this war going to make history by being the first to end before it’s cause could be found?” Geoff Meade, Sky News

CNN fielded two broadcast teams during the Iraq War. Why? Because there were two stories? Obviously, there was only one story– the true story of what happened in Iraq. But CNN showed two versions: one to America, and one to the rest of the world, the “international” version.

The American version was sheer boosterism– giving America the war it wanted to see. The Americans were nimble, quick, clean, and moral. Those unscrupulous, outrageous Iraqi’s dared to resist. Every time the military claimed to stumble into weapons of mass destruction: top of the news. The subsequent correction: who cares? When there was a controversy, as when Americans attacked their own reporters in the Palestine Hotel, CNN reporters were quick to excuse their own military, before gathering any actual facts. Reports in the hotel itself reported that there were no shots fired from the hotel, as alleged by the U.S. military in Islamic Disneyland, Doha, and repeated by Colin Powell.

Americans wanted to know if Jessica Lynch had plans for the future. How did she feel about her experience. One picture in front of the flag, please, one more.

No questions about why a recent air force recruit identified as “Marie” was nearly court-martialed for having sex in the dorms after reporting that she had been raped by a cadet, Douglas L. Meester.

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Iraq’s Debt

The New York Times reports that Iraq owes various entities about 60 to 80 billion dollars.

Who owes that money?

Iraq has been run by a dictator for 30 years. Saddam Hussein was never elected to power by free and fair elections. The vast majority of the citizens of Iraq had absolutely no voice in the government’s decision to borrow money. And what was the money borrowed for? Probably to buy weapons. Why did Saddam need weapons? To crush his own people.

So who owes the world 60 to 80 billion dollars? Saddam Hussein, that’s who. And when Saddam Hussein came to these banks and government institutions to ask if he could borrow some money and the banks said, how do we know you’ll pay it back, he answered, the people of my country willingly undertake to cover all of my debts, and the banks reply: but Mr. Hussein, you were not elected! And he didn’t get his money. Right?

So if you’re Russia or Citibank or France or Halliburton (which did more than $40 million of business with Iraq only a few years ago) or whoever the hell is owed that money, I guess you just sigh and say to yourself, “darn– if only Saddam hadn’t been deposed! Now we lost our money.”

Ha ha ha.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

I’ll tell you what we are going to do. We are going to make the people of Iraq pay Saddam’s debt. It’s only fair. They live there. What would banks and credit agencies do if people didn’t repay their debts? They would become irresponsible parasites who cheat us out of our money and they would never learn the value of good hard day’s work. Almost like stock analysts.

Or a billion barrels of oil.

I hope you think I’m joking but I’m not. Iraq’s predicament is no different from that of many third world countries. Some asshole rises to power by killing his opponents and bullying citizens into helpless submission. He imprisons, tortures, and murders his own people with impunity. They live in terror of being arrested by his secret police. Then he goes to Citibank. Does Citibank say, “gee, that would be a risky loan– what if he is deposed and the people don’t want to pay for his palaces, his air force, his missiles, and his tanks? I’ll lose my money.”

No. Citibank says, “we can always count on the IMF and the World Bank and the United States government to enforce these loans!

And so it is.

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Bamiyan

A few years ago, the world watched in horror and disgust and contempt as the Taliban, those freaky arch-Victorians of the Islamic imperium of Afghanistan, destroyed the massive sandstone carvings of Buddha in the side of a mountain in Bamiyan.

The statues were not remarkable artistically, but they were deeply significant for historical and cultural reasons. (Sorry if you do think they’re beautiful– I don’t. They look like something a bunch of monks without great artistic talent would create.) In the seventh century AD, there were over 5,000 Buddhist monks living in the caves around the statues. Islamic Arab tribes drove the Buddhists out by the ninth century– they didn’t destroy the statues, though.

That would be barbaric.

The destruction of them by the Taliban was an act of mindless, philistine thuggery that astounded the world. If one was not, until then, convinced of the barbarity of the Taliban, this one act did it.

The Taliban repressed women, of course, and was famously intolerant of freedom of expression, diversity, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, or any kind of fun whatsoever. But those statues were just sitting there, harmlessly, impressively (175 metres high). It takes a peculiarly vindictive and petty and malicious mindset to destroy something like that.

In 2003, the Americans invaded Iraq. The marines that arrived first in Baghdad immediately secured the oil ministry buildings and guarded them diligently during the first weeks of the occupation. Down the road, the Baghdad Museum featuring an absolutely priceless collection of some of the world’s most important antiquities sat there, unguarded.

The Americans stood by as Iraqis of unknown affiliation or devotion destroyed and looted the museum. The marines did nothing. They didn’t even seem to care.

It is not that the Americans were unaware of the significance of the collection. Well, maybe they were. But they certainly knew that cultured and educated people in the U.S. and elsewhere regarded the collection as invaluable and irreplaceable. Experts from around the world had made efforts to ensure that the Americans didn’t bomb it by mistake, and had taken measures to protect the collection once they occupied Baghdad. The Americans said, “yeah, yeah, fine, we’ll take care of it.” Then they didn’t.

The Washington Times uncovered a March 26 memo that showed that the Pentagon had communicated, to the coalition commanders, a list of important sites to be protected during the war. The Baghdad museum was number 2 on the list. Somebody in the Pentagon had a brain.

The world should never forget or forgive Donald Rumsveld for sloughing off the destruction of the Baghdad museum as just “so many vases”. It was a wonderful moment, if you think shocking revelations of the deep-seated idiocy are “wonderful”. He really didn’t care. He really didn’t grasp the significance of the collection. He really could not imagine why anyone would worry about the loss of these absolutely unique examples of the art and expression of mankind’s earliest civilizations.

That’s fine, really. Nobody cares if some asshole called Donald Rumsveld sits in his cave somewhere picking his teeth while contemplating the eternal symmetry and beauty of a plum pit.

But George Bush, during his election campaign, never once informed the voters that, given the opportunity, he’d appoint people who would happily stand by and do nothing while priceless antiquities are looted and destroyed. Donald Rumsveld surprised us.

Jack Valenti, the head of the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA), goes around the world berating governments for supporting local film industries at the expense of Hollywood productions. He wonders why anyone would bother with indigenous film, when they can have as many copies of “Ernest Saves Christmas” and “Dumb and Dumber” as they want.

Bush should hire him. He belongs in this White House working with Mr. Rumsveld. They can both be put in charge of the world’s priceless antiquities.

Do you think any of these leaders of the free world care about the beauty of the rain forest, or a pristine wilderness area, or coastal wetlands, or a medieval cathedral, or a rare endangered species, or live theatre or the ballet, or opera, or Mozart’s birthplace, or humpbacked whales, or snowy owls, or Dostoevsky’s manuscripts, or Shakespeare’s original theatre, or a Scottish castle, or the Great Wall of China, or mummies, or cuneiform tablets, or anything at all, other than the stock market and McDonalds and Disneyland?

Think again. When they come to your neighborhood promising the delights of democracy and free enterprise, get ready for drive-thru’s and golden arches.

If you never knew it before, you know now that George Bush and Rumsveld and Perle and Cheney are to culture and history and civilization what McDonald’s is to gourmet cooking.

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Inhuman Future

Today’s New York Times reports that the United States is planning to expand it’s military presence throughout the world by adding new air bases in countries in Eastern Europe and Asia, and that they expect to have permanent air-bases in Iraq.

The exact words are: Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Four Key Bases in Iraq.

The article is not clear about what “expects” means. The writer quotes unnamed “senior officials” in the Bush Administration.

That’s really amazing, considering that Iraq does not have a legitimate government at the moment. Is this a hint that the new Iraq government will not be quite as independent of U.S. control as is claimed? Why wouldn’t they say that they would ask permission of the new Iraqi government, once it is constituted, to locate air-bases on their soil?

But the scariest thing about all of this is the fact that the United States is projecting a future world in which it’s armed forces can sweep into any locality on a moment’s notice to “protect American interests”.

As the lone superpower, you could wish for a sense of graciousness and reasoned indulgence from the United States. We are bigger and far more powerful than any other country on earth. We will do what we need to do to maintain peace and good order. No– we will ensure that the vital interests of the United States are protected around the globe. That’s the not the same as peace and good order. It’s the same as colonial patriarchy.

But I think there is something even worse than that. It is the feeling that this administration really believes that the world is filled with untold horrors awaiting Americans in the near future and that we must project formidable military strength to ensure that powerful enemies will not be able to strike us without swift and devastating consequences.

The vision of this administration is a not a future in which our enemies have been vanquished and peace and good order prevail. It is a future in which we create more and more enemies and they continue to strike us and we continue to lash back. That’s because we project a world in which we continue to consume a hugely disproportionate amount of the world’s natural resources and this will arouse greed and envy in other nations and they will want to fight for their share and we will have to fight back. In other words, we are not going to be working with other people in the future: we know we’ll be working against them.

Until Christ returns. And that’s that.

Put your hand up if that’s the vision of the future you voted for when you punched your chad in Florida three years ago.