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“Iraq War Was Worth It”
Bush Says Iraq War Was Worth It
"Five years into this battle, there is an understandable debate over whether the war was worth fighting … whether the fight is worth winning … and whether we can win it. The answers are clear to me:"
5 year chart, Philadelphia Oil Service Sector Index
(via Marketwatch.com)
Cheney’s Halliburton Ties Remain
According to Cheney’s 2001 financial disclosure report, the vice president’s Halliburton benefits include three batches of stock options comprising 433,333 shares.
It is understandable but disquieting that calling the Iraq debacle a “war”, seems somehow to make it acceptable to the US public (part). Of course they have been snowed over with the stereotype – an enemy, national defense, islamo-fascisms, cells and secret armies, und so weiter, to make it fit legendary history. Note that Obama uses the word as well. However, nobody is using the word peace which usually means the cessation or absence of war, in contrast to the Israelis, who use and abuse that concept. I suppose that reflects the fact that Israel has managed to convince or show that is has enemies and that it is attacked, whereas everyone implicitly agrees that the US is not in that position, either because Iraqis are seen as helpless, or because the very idea of the US being attacked seriously in any way is an unacceptable concept. The ‘attack on America’ of 9/11 had some echo and effects, but was never taken seriously, in that no cause or agents beyond nebulous ‘islamic terror’ were ever identified, la-la-land in defense terms, which at the very least requires the enemy to be identified.
Opponents call the Iraq venture “an occupation.” Presidential candidates don’t use that dirty word, but act as if it was apt. Hill would withdraw troops she says (Bush did too, etc.) presumably soften or minimize the guns/goons aspect, replacing them with Iraqi arms and other more robust structures of Gvmt/economic control, international involvement (see Afghanistan for ex.), etc. A question of method of managing an occupation, smoothing it over, making it politically correct, etc. (Fat hope.) McCain prefers the discourse of what power of ten years of ‘war’ I have forgotten, he prefers to call a spade a machine gun, no doubt R-D discourse required differences play a role. (Gritty realism doomed to failure both on the ground and politically.) Yet, the term ‘occupation’ doesn’t really fit either.
What is the US occupying?
The ground? No. The infrastructure, a viable, working territory : destroyed. It is one thing to have lily pads in Germany or Kosova, another to hold postage stamps in a devastated desert and ‘badlands’.
The economic apparatus? No; no ‘viable’ modern capitalist economy can exist lacking the material infrastructure (eg. some roads, water, electricity); without some agreed-on law and order, such as contract law, reasonable courts, and even dull stuff like traffic laws. Import-export, to mention only the obvious, has to be smooth: and for that, the ‘country’ has to have some kind of status and stability. Guam, Porto Rico, Afghanistan, aren’t US states, don’t suffer in the same way (to mention very diverse examples.) Vichy France is a counter example. Iraq has no status.
Hearts and minds? Opinion? Cyber space? Teen aspirations? Cultural kinks, core values? No. For the US, the only only aim of capting these is to control other aspects, and clumsy propaganda efforts are tireless but passing strange and self defeating. See link.
Extractive or ‘productive’ ground based business? such as agriculture, mining, land manipulations (eg. dams) energy (fossil fuels), sustainable, so called, such as wind, dates, fish farms? etc. No – (see above, which is the easy part.) So that shoe doesn’t fit either.
link about Afghanistan: DoD Strategic Communication Plan for Afgh. Very slow to load properly but worth a read. link via blog MountainRunner, “on public diplomacy and strategic communications in the 21st century” link
Posted by: Tangerine | Mar 19 2008 18:34 utc | 4
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