The Iraq War Is Going Just Fine (For the Neocons)

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" Zoltan Abraham " <zsazle

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 23:58:44 -0700 (PDT)

The Iraq War Is Going Just Fine (For the Neocons)

 

 

 

 

The Iraq War Is Going Just Fine (For the Neocons)

 

by Zoltan Abraham

 

September 28, 2005

 

Liberals keep saying that the Iraq War is a disaster, that the US has

already lost. But the reality is that the Iraq War is going just fine.

That is to say, fine for the Neocons who have orchestrated it. They

are getting exactly what they want from this war.

 

What is that? Let's take a look.

 

Strong Dollar: The US dollar is a house of cards, vastly

over-extended, without even remotely adequate backing. The strength of

the currency is sustained mostly by the global dominance of the United

States. In particular, oil is traded exclusively in USD. After water,

oil is the single most important substance in contemporary Western

civilization. The currency that controls the oil trade will always be

strong, regardless of its real value.

 

What many Americans do not realize is that in 2000, Saddam Hussein

switched to the Euro from the USD for trading oil. Iran was also

contemplating the change. Saddam's decision to switch could easily

have started a chain reaction, with more and more countries going over

to the Euro, thereby deposing the USD from its all-important role. The

USD would soon have collapsed, causing rapid hyper-inflation.

 

The Neocons wasted little time in bringing Iraq back into the dollar

zone. The invasion has also sent a powerful message to the rest of the

world: Leaving the zone is not allowed.

 

Oil: Oil, again, is the second most important resource for our society

today. Bush and his backers, moreover, are deeply invested in the oil

trade. The movers and shakers who put Bush into power have been eyeing

Iraq's vast reserves for many years. Now they get to have it all.

 

Mechanism for Embezzlement: At no time in human history did

war-profiteering reach the extremes that we have witnessed in Iraq.

Billions upon billions of American taxpayers' dollars have been simply

handed over to corporations under the guise of war-funding. For the

very few who benefit from these handouts, life has been very good indeed.

 

Secret funds: As much as $9 billion of the money allocated for the

Iraq War has disappeared without a trace. The missing funds might

simply have found their way to the coffers of the war-profiteering

companies. Or they might have been redirected to finance clandestine

government activities, without congressional oversight, much like the

way Reagan and Bush I had diverted money from arms sales to Iran to

illegally finance the Contras in Nicaragua.

 

Control at Home: A war abroad has always been a great way of

achieving control at home. Few people will question the government

during a time of war, and those who do can simply be brushed aside as

unpatriotic and unsupportive of the soldiers risking their lives in a

foreign land. Wartime is also an excellent opportunity to take civil

rights away from the citizenry. When war rages, people are usually

afraid, and when people are afraid, they agree to vast concessions to

the strong man who claims to be able to protect them.

 

Election Boost: Bush and Co were already planning the Iraq War before

the 2000 presidential campaign. But Bush waited until October of 2002

to start beating the drums of war in earnest – just in time for the

midterm elections. Other issues were eclipsed by the war talk, and

Republicans around the country fared well as a result. The

preoccupation with Iraq also served as a distraction from some

suspicious electronic election results, such as the highly improbable

defeat of Max Cleland of Georgia with touch screen voting machines.

 

In 2004, Bush continued to use Iraq expertly to his advantage. To

question him was to undercut support for the troops. To question his

handling of the war, was to give aid and comfort to the enemy. To

challenge him politically was to ensure that the enemies of our

country would prevail. That was the Republican propaganda. It didn't

help that the Democratic nominee did not articulate a coherent

position on the war.

 

Unless new hostilities start within a year or so, Bush is undoubtedly

going to use Iraq again in the 2006 midterm elections to rally support

for Republican candidates, and to distract from the GOP voter fraud

that is certain to occur again throughout the country.

 

Isolated America: After 9/11, the United States experienced an

outpouring of affection from almost the entire world. However, within

a year and a half, the Bush administration squandered all of that good

will. Many have wondered how Bush could possibly have been so

incompetent. But I don't think that the alienation of almost all of

the rest of the world was incompetence. As I wrote in my earlier

article, " Domestic Violence and Our National Policy, " isolating the

victim is a part of an abusers tactics. If Americans feel that the

entire world is against them, they are more likely to rally around

their strong-man leader.

 

Creation of a Mercenary Military: The largest armed force in Iraq is

the US military. The second largest is the British military. The third

largest is the private army of Halliburton. At no time in US history

has so much military work been contracted out to private entities. The

Iraq War has taken us a long way toward transforming our armed forces

into a mercenary war machine.

 

Why would the Neocons prefer a mercenary military? For one, Dubya's

corporate backers make out like bandits through the contracts, as we

have seen. The more our government sells military work, the more these

corporations can rake it in.

 

But Bush and Co have an even more significant reason for going the

mercenary route. Private armies do not come under the same laws as the

US military. They can, literally, get away with murder in a way that

the bona fide uniformed American troops cannot. What is more, if

things get really sour, the administration can simply disavow any ties

to the private armies. No connection, no responsibility.

 

Skyrocketing National Debt: The creation of a crippling national debt

is a classic GOP strategy. Run up the bills sky high with military

spending, and then argue for massive budget cuts. Except that the

budget cuts won't come from military expenditures. They'll come from

social programs. Thus, the Neocons have their cake and eat it too.

They make out like crazy on the money thrown at the military, and then

they get to axe all the social programs they loathe so much.

 

Disposal of Nuclear Waste: What do you do with your nuclear waste?

Easy – according to the controversial British MP George Galloway. The

Western powers simply take their nuclear waste, make it into

ammunitions in the form of depleted uranium shells, and blow it up

among the poor people of the world. At least, that is what we have

done in Iraq.

 

Strategic Presence: The US is building at least fourteen permanent

military bases in Iraq. Our troops will be staying there for a while,

whatever the latest White House announcement might suggest. The Iraq

War has made it possible for our government to establish a massive

military presence in the heart of the Middle East.

 

Reduction of the Enemy Population: The US military claims not to count

enemy casualties. An independent source, however, has calculated that

approximately 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed since

the invasion began. That was the conservative estimate. And the study

was published quite a while ago. The number of Iraqi civilian

casualties is undoubtedly much higher than 100,000 by now.

 

The Neocon architects of the war have shown no compunction about the

continuous slaughter of Iraq's population. In fact, contrary to media

hype, the combat strategies employed in this war seem to have been

designed to kill on a massive scale.

 

Safer Israel: Saddam Hussein was a great ally of the Palestinian

opposition. He took in large numbers of Palestinian refugees. What is

more, every time a suicide bomber attacked Israel, Saddam paid his

family something to the tune of $30,000. The US has traditionally been

an ally of Israel. By invading and occupying Iraq, the US has

neutralized one of the most powerful enemies of Israel in the Middle East.

 

Destabilized Middle East: Many critics of the war have been arguing

that if we don't leave soon, we will destabilize the entire region of

the Middle East. That's not a problem for the Neocons. In fact, they

would love the opportunity to remake the Middle East according to

their vision for the world.

 

Divided Europe: If the EU could speak with one voice, Europe could

really stand up to the geopolitical machinations of the Bush regime.

But the countries of Europe have been too divided, and the Neocons

have exploited their disagreements over Iraq expertly. As things are

now, the European Union is handicapped in international matters by a

divided foreign policy.

 

Economic Dominance: The Neocons have been running the American

economy into the ground by transferring billions upon billions of

dollars to those already extremely wealthy. So how can they keep the

US economy still dominant in the world? One way would be to start

running the US according to sound economic principles – and to stop

the looting of the wealth of the nation for the benefit of a few. But

that's not the Neocon way. Instead, they will use brute force to

eliminate anyone on the planet who presents an obstacle to their

economic power. The invasion of Iraq is a message to the world. The

American upper-class will use massive military force to defend its

interests around the world.

 

Perpetual War: Did the Neocons really believe that the invading

American forces would be met with roses? I doubt it. They probably

knew full well that they would be facing a serious insurgency. They

may have underestimated the determination of the rebels, and they may

have thought that the country would be subdued by now. But the Neocons

do not want victory. They want perpetual war, for all the reasons that

this war has been good for them. If they had managed to pulverize the

resistance in Iraq by now, they would simply have moved on to a new

country, probably Iran, and then Syria. The Iraqi insurgency has

merely forced them to rework their time table. But other than that,

the insurgency has only played into their plans for non-stop warfare.

 

But, you might say, is the US not losing against the insurgency? No.

The US military will never be defeated by the insurgency. We have more

weapon power than the Iraqis have people and resources. We can simply

keep shooting and bombing until they are all dead. Plus, if things get

really bad, there is always our nuclear arsenal.

 

The Iraq War is certainly a criminal and immoral war. But it is not an

incompetently managed war. The Neocons know what they are doing. They

know what they want, and they are getting all of it. As usual, what

liberals see as incompetence is really an evil plan masterfully executed.

 

 

 

Zoltan Abraham