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/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's
Stories
June 18,
2004
Gary Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
June
14, 2004
John
Stanton / Wayne Madsen
Torture, Inc: Oliver North Joins
the Party
Kathy
Kelly
Requiems: What Happens When Compassion Dies?
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Gets Testy About Torture
Lee
Sustar
Strikers Defy Visteon's Company Thugs
Kurt
Nimmo
The Desperate Censors: the Republican Plot to Kill Farhenheit
9/11
Jim
Davis
Hard Right Nativism
Eliot
Katz
Death and War
Uri
Avnery
The Nightmare Comes True
Website
of the Day
Instruments of Statecraft
June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
| June
18, 2004
Blood of
Victory
The Enduring
Triumph of Bush
By CHRIS
FLOYD
Surely
it is now time for all The Bush-bashers and war critics – on both
left and right – to swallow their pride, put aside their partisanship,
and admit the stone-cold truth: the invasion and occupation of Iraq
has been a rousing success.
For
despite many setbacks and dark days, it cannot be denied that George
W. Bush has accomplished exactly what he set out to do in launching
his war of aggression: the installation – through "a heavy
dose of fear and violence," as one American commander so eloquently
put it – of a client state in Iraq, led by a strongman who will
facilitate the Bush Regime's long-term (and long-declared) strategic
goal of establishing a permanent military "footprint" in the
key oil state, while also guaranteeing the short-term goal of opening
the country to exploitation by Bush cronies and favored foreign interests.
All of this has now been done, and even given an official seal of approval
from Bush's former adversaries on the UN Security Council – a
rousing triumph indeed.
True,
in its quest to install a "Saddam Lite" – more pliant
and presentable than the old Bush-Reagan partner – the Regime
had to change horses in mid-stream, swapping its early favorite, Ahmad
Chalabi, the convicted fraudster, suspected Iranian spy and proudly
confessed purveyor of warmongering lies ("We were heroes in error!"),
for a late-breaking dark horse: Chalabi's cousin and rival, Iyad Allawi,
former Baathist enforcer, proudly-confessed CIA tool – and the
leader of a terrorist campaign that killed dozens of Iraqi civilians,
as Patrick Cockburn originally reported years ago in The Independent.
Under
the direction of their CIA paymasters, Allawi and his Iraqi National
Accord carried out a terror bombing campaign in Baghdad during 1994-95.
Their targets included a mosque, a movie house and a newspaper –
the latter strike killing a child passing by. (Can't make an omelette
without etc., etc.) Ex-CIA operatives from those glory days said a bus
full of schoolchildren was also blown apart – although they admitted
they weren't sure which of their paid terrorist groups were responsible
for that one, the NY Times reports. But conservative estimates put at
least 100 terrorist murder notches in Allawi's stylish Gucci belt.
Obviously,
this man of action was much to be preferred to his windbag cousin, who
could offer little more than lies and larceny. So Chalabi got the customary
shiv in the back – the fate of all retainers who prove superfluous
to the Bush Family's ambitions – while Allawi was named prime
minister of the newly "sovereign" government. One of his first
acts was to "invite" the American occupiers to stay on. Meanwhile,
just before the "transfer," U.S. Viceroy Paul Bremer installed
Bushist "commissioners" throughout the ministries of the "sovereign"
state. These moles were given budgetary and prosecutorial powers, ensuring
that administrative control – and the flow of loot – would
remain firmly in Washington's hands.
In
fact, the whole adventure has been a win-win scenario for the Bushists
from the start, no matter how it ends up. This is what many of the opponents
of the war – and even most of its now-fretful supporters –
have failed to grasp, because they don't understand what the Bush Family
is about.
Put
simply, the Bushes represent the confluence of three long-established
power factions in the American elite: oil, arms and investments. These
groups equate their own interests, their own wealth and privilege, with
the interests of the nation – indeed, the world – as a whole.
And they pursue these interests with every weapon at their command,
including war, torture, deceit and corruption. Democracy means nothing
to them – not even in their own country, as we saw in the 2000
election. Laws are just whips to keep the common herd in line; they
don't apply to the elite, as Bush's own lawyers have openly asserted
in the now-famous memos establishing his "inherent power"
as Commander-in-Chief to "set aside the law" and order any
crime in the name of his self-proclaimed "war on terror."
The
Iraq war has been immensely profitable for these Bushist power factions
(and their tributary industries, such as construction); billions of
dollars in public money have already poured into their coffers. Halliburton
has been catapulted from the edge of bankruptcy to the heights of no-bid,
open-ended, guaranteed profit. The Carlyle Group is gorging on war contracts.
Individual Bush family members are making out like bandits from war-related
investments, while dozens of Bushist minions – like Richard Perle,
James Woolsey, and Joe Allbaugh -- have cashed in their insider chips
for blood money.
The
aftermath of the war promises equal if not greater riches. Even if the
new Iraqi government maintains state control of its oil industry, there
are still billions to be made in refining, distribution, servicing and
security for oilfields and pipelines, as in Saudi Arabia. Likewise,
the new Iraqi military and police forces will require billions more
in weapons, equipment and training, bought from the U.S. arms industry
– and from the fast-expanding "private security" industry,
the politically hard-wired mercenary forces that are the power elite's
latest lucrative spin-off. And as with Saudi Arabia, oil money from
the new Iraq will pump untold billions into American banks and investment
houses.
But
that's not all. For even in the worst-case scenario, if the Americans
had to pull out tomorrow, abandoning everything – their bases,
their "commissioners," their contracts, their collaborators
– the Bushist factions would still come out ahead. For not only
has their already-incalculable wealth been vastly augmented (with any
potential losses indemnified by U.S. taxpayers), but their deeply-entrenched
sway over American society has also increased by several magnitudes.
No matter which party controls the government, the militarization of
America is so far gone now it's impossible to imagine any major rollback
in the gargantuan U.S. war machine – 725 bases in 132 countries,
annual military budgets nearing $500 billion, a planned $1 trillion
in new weapons systems already moving through the pipeline. Indeed,
Democrat John Kerry promises even bigger war budgets and more troops
if elected.
Nor
will either party conceivably challenge the dominance of the energy
behemoths – or stand against the American public's demand for
cheap gas, big vehicles and unlimited consumption of a vast disproportion
of the world's oil. As for Wall Street – both parties have long
been the eager courtesans of the investment elite, dispatching armies
all over the world to protect their financial interests. The power factions
whose influence has been so magnified by Bush's war will maintain their
supremacy regardless of the electoral outcome.
To
think that all of this has happened because a small band of extremist
ideologues – the neocons – somehow "hijacked"
U.S. foreign policy to push their radical dreams of "liberating"
the Middle East by force and destroying Israel's enemies is absurd.
The Bushist power factions were already determined on an aggressive
foreign policy; they used the neocons and their bag of tricks –
their inflated rhetoric, their conspiratorial zeal, their murky Middle
East contacts, their ideology of brute force in the name of "higher"
causes – as tools (and PR cover) to help bring about a long-planned
war that had nothing to do with democracy or security or any coherent
ideology whatsoever beyond the remorseless pursuit of wealth and power,
the blind urge to be top dog.
The
neocons were happy to be used, of course – although they may be
less happy when the Bushists, ever-faithless, offer them up as legal
sacrifices in the Plame-gate and Chalabi-gate affairs. Shakespeare anticipated
this tawdry crew long ago, in Hamlet: "Such officers do the king
best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of
his jaw, first mouthed, to be last swallowed. When he needs what you
have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and sponge, you shall be dry
again." Whatever their baleful influence, these servile ministers
were not the drivers of Bush's war chariot to Babylon. The reins –
and the whip – have always been in the hands of the blood-and-iron
factions and their feckless front man, the Commander-in-Chief.
So
has Bush's war brought democracy to Iraq? Has it dealt a blow to terrorism?
Has it made America – or Israel, or the world – any safer?
No. But it was never intended to do those things. All this death and
chaos – this mass murder – has had but one aim: enhancing
the power of a handful of elites. This criminal mission has been accomplished.
And there is not the slightest chance that any of the chief perpetrators
will ever face justice.
Now
that, my friends, is victory.
Chris
Floyd writes for CounterPunch and Moscow Times.
Weekend Edition June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
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