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CounterPunch
September
9, 2002
Gen. Karl Rove's
War
Saddam as W.'s Noriega
by Jack McCarthy
During the Clinton years the U.S. news media in
this country never tired of reminding us that the lesson of Vietnam
was to let the Generals run the war.
Not only should pols get out of the way,
but they should also let the military decide whether or not we
should even go to war.
How to explain then a palpable media
silence as the Joint Chiefs and even Norman Schwarzkopf, the
cheeky quotable hero of "Desert Storm," all but declare
their total opposition to an attack on Iraq?
It appears that the media will give right
wing chickenhawks, with draft dodgers Bush and Cheney at the
forefront of the goose-stepping toward Baghdad, a pass. But if
you were perceived as even mildly left-of center ala Clinton,
the media puts you in the dock.
Just as the media is afraid to confront
the conservative right on this issue, so does the corporate media--as
well as many left and right intellectuals--refrain from asking
the hard question:
Why is Saddam suddenly in the cross-hairs
of the U.S. and the British when only 6 months ago he was just
a defanged, deloused dictator (defanged and deloused by the U.S.
and Britain who provided Saddam with the weapons of mass destruction
we are supposed to be so worried about now) shooting his shotgun
into the air?
I suspect the reason is that the answer
to that question would lead to very unfashionable Marxist conclusions.
After all, and as we've been reminded
from everyone from Christopher Hitchens (who tittered and blushed
like Britney Spears after being asked if she's gone all the way:
and said "No" when CSPAN'S Brian Shaw asked him if
he was still a socialist) to Robert Heilbruner, socialism and
Marxism are dead.
Why are the U.S. and Britain braying
for war with Iraq? The answer is very simple.
The U.S. and Britain (a) want Iraq's
oil (b) want Iraq.
In short this prospective war is a naked
imperial power play.
Unlike the more timid imperialists of
the Bush/Thatcher generation who occasionally worried about appearances,
Bush and Cheney and Blair are--in their own minds anyway, out
to seize the imperial moment.
Critics of all stripes--Joint Chiefs
of Staff included-- be damned.
And who cares about appearances when
a hefty percentage of the worlds oil reserves are there for the
taking?
All this dry debate and to-ing and fro-ing
in newspapers and magazines disputing Saddam's military capabilities
and/or the legalities is in reality a kind of parlor game and
sorely misses the obvious.
The truth is the U.S. and Britain know
full well that Saddam has few if any "weapons of mass destruction."
As Noam Chomsky said about debating the
Vietnam war, to even debate the facts legitimizes the debate.
Indeed, rest assured: Tony, Dick and
W know bloody fucking well that Saddam--like Koba Stalin's soldierless
Pope-- also has no divisions to speak of: at least any that will
stand and fight.
Nor do they believe--and admittedly they
could be wrong-- that the Arab masses will rise in unison to
protest this naked imperial power play.
They justifiably believe that the Arab
world is in disarray and very unlikely to raise a finger on Saddam's
behalf.
So why not seize the moment?
Like Osama's audacious attack on the
World Trade Center (I find myself concluding) Blair-Bush-Cheney's
imperial plotting, although revolting in the extreme, has a tinge
of mad genius to it.
They are saying to hell with the "moderates."
Let them write essays in the Wall Street Journal and the New
York Times. This tomato is too ripe not to pick.
In their zealous greedy grab for Iraq's
riches, they may well underestimate the rage of what smarmy hacks
like Tom Friedman sneeringly refer to as "the Arab street."
And maybe Iraqi's will defend the homeland if not Saddam.
To belabor the Osama comparison further,
Tony, Dick and W have killed the pilots(the coalition partners
from Desert Storm and even U.S. military leaders) and are fixing
to fly the plane into the building.
Few observers of any ideological stripe
seem to realize that the US and Britain aren't going to "war"
with Iraq, anymore than Iraq went to "war" with Kuwait.
What is unfolding and what we are about
to witness is pure and simple, a Suez-plus type operation. The
U.S. and Britain are out to re-colonize Iraq --and its oil.
And anyone who thinks the U.S. and Britain
are going to turn over Iraq's oil to the Kurds and the southern
Shiites is suffering from utopian delusions.
Osama's Victory
What is to be gained besides Iraqi oil?
Seizing Iraq will allow the U.S. to solve
the problem of where to park the U.S. Persian Gulf Doctrine police.
Last January in a little noticed or commented
upon story, the New York Times reported that the pentagon had
devised a soon to be implemented contingency plan to end the
U.S. military presence on Saudi soil.
Although the article didn't mention it,
Osama's bin Laden's main political demand/rationale for 9/11
was that the U.S. pull its secular ass out of Kuwait.
After conquering Iraq the U.S. won't
have to worry about offending the sensibilities of Osama and
his angry lost generation warriors.
Speaking of the Persian Gulf Doctrine,
and no one does, let us not forget that it was the brainchild
of Jimmy Carter.
Ignored as well by many commentators
is the glaring political fact that with Osama foot loose if not
fancy free, and Bush sorely in need of an Arab trophy, Saddam
fits nicely into the administrations 2004 re-election strategy.
Which is why one UN-named General told
the New York Times this is "General Karl Rove's war."
Saddam's fate is to be W's Noriega--
although unlike daddy Bush's old cohort, Saddam will probably
go down fighting.
"Marxism" may be dead as an
intellectual fad, but like imperialism itself-- as a mode of
political analysis-- it remains very much alive.
Not every media outlet has missed "the
real story" and the imperial motivations for this war. Much
to their credit the European press hounds have picked up the
imperial scent unlike the lapdog U.S. counterparts.
From Christopher Hitchens on the center-right
to more well meaning writer/intellectuals on the left, the notion
that this curious little "war" is about good guys vs.
bad guys or just plain "bad policy," ignores the obvious.
Blair, Bush and Cheney's message to Saddam
is simple: WE ARE COMING--FOR YOUR OIL.
SO its on to Baghdad with the war wimps,
Bush, Cheney and Blair.
And to hell with the Joint Chiefs.
Jack McCarthy
lives in Tallahassee, Florida. He can be reached at: jackm32301@yahoo.com
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September
7 / 8, 2002
Bill Christison
A
Year Later: It's Happening Here
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Tenth Crusade
Susan Davis
Mr. Ashcroft's
Neighborhood
Bruce Jackson
When
War Came Home
David Krieger
Looking
Back on September 11
Mike Leon
Bush and War
Peter Linebaugh
Levellers
and 9/11
William McDougal
September 11 One Year On:
That's Entertainment!
Riad Z. Abdelkarim and Jason
Erb
How American Muslims Really Responded
to 9/11
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The Trouble
with Normal
Tom Stephens
Rise Up...Dump Bush
September
6, 2002
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Stolen
Trust
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September
5, 2002
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Jesus vs.
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McKinney's
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Gavin Keeney
Beaux
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Wayne Saunders
War
Begins; Nobody Notices
Irit Katriel
Drunk
with Power:
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September
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September
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Labor
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Prisoners
in the US
September
1, 2002
Dave Marsh
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August 31,
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The Gangbang
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at the State Dept.
August 30,
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