rjj, those that believe in NWO are optimists; the only real horizon in our post-political era is that of NWD (New World Disorder), where nobody is really in command
Also, NWD is much easier to achieve, doesn’t need conspiracies, just let things happen and criminalize possible solutions (higher taxes and redistributive policy, for example, or respect for sovereignty);
of course, this will lead to disaster in the long term, but Fukushima is just the latest reminder of what big private interests think of the long term

Posted by: claudio | Apr 2 2011 13:33 utc | 4

Claudio, I probably have said NWO serfdom. Clientage is pre-serfdom.

Posted by: rjj | Apr 2 2011 14:01 utc | 6

Besides what other commentators have said, – I’d add when access to justice is low, or really more or less barred, alternatives must be turned to – what we see as well is a divide between two very different conceptions of ‘law’ and justice.
The first, which is current, for example in Switzerland, is that the legislative apparatus, the courts, the treatment of criminals, or even civil litigants, exist to maintain law and order, deal with violators in one way or another, but not in first place to compensate victims or repair relations in any way. The victim(s), in fact have no (or very little) say, the State, that is the ‘people’ or ‘the community’ acts for them.
The second -while naturally resting on a fulcrum of custom, tradition, law and usually some authority that mediates, decides and orders – is geared to exactly the opposite: to exacting satisfactory revenge and compensation, and repairing relations. In short, it is the victim’s position that hold’s first place, contrary to here, where the violator is center stage.
No system is pure of course, and in the US, for ex. victims play a larger role.

Posted by: Noirette | Apr 2 2011 14:07 utc | 8

This is entirely predictable, and a sign that the U.S. delusions (or myopic intentions) about the occupation, modernity, and democracy are all alive and well, and doing quite nicely thank you.
Of course weakened/broken/evicerated government institutions lead to the fallback positions of tribalism, because what else is there that fulfill the functional needs of people?
This is not a bug, but a feature.

Posted by: anna missed | Apr 2 2011 18:03 utc | 10

they are not contradictions. they are lies. crude & vicious lies. empires have always acted as if the other does not exist except as an element of physical forces, less important than land, & what lies on top or underneath it
u s imperialism posses plans that are in & of themselves prurient, pornographic, perverse. an element of perversity is its vulgarity, its thoughtlessness, its lack of any sort of vision that exist outside either short term of moyen term demands of occupation, plunder & pillage
all imperialisms have tried to decimate the cultures they seek to conquer but only u s imperialism has sought the brutal rape of those cultures, not only of the those occupied cultures but also those of vassal states who are in real terms, occupied. that is in the most fundamental sense they are inextricably tied to capital’s demands which determine that, for example – those occupied cultures posses neither sovereignty nor what would be called an independent polity. the appereil of ‘educarion/culture’ as althusser noted is of primary importance. in our time, moreso. in english speaking cultures it has destroyed communities, effaced institutions & forms of resistance & is relentless in its attack of both the individual & society – have created a kind of mad max world of complete absence of hope. large & small owns all over the english speaking world are frightening, exceptionally frightening in their lawlessness, that is, its subordination to dominant culture but in the quotidian reality – a hobbesian viciousness. to be poor & homeless in sheffield, cardiff, roubaeix, detroit, whyalla, motherwell is a world most of the living world, even the so called third world would be in fear of
imperialism creates a world where an independent individual is torn between somnambulism & funambalism – away from eros towaards the death instinct

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 2 2011 19:12 utc | 12

no, annie they regard the murder of a million people, of the destruction of a culture & the creation of a dysfunctional state as quite, quite, normal
the term, the great satan, i imagine now, did not just fall from the skies

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 2 2011 19:58 utc | 14

it’s grotesque – you destroy the state, society collapses, the survivors strive to get along in some way or another, and the Washington Post poses an ethnologist’s eye on the crime scene
it’s dissociation in its purest form

Posted by: claudio | Apr 2 2011 21:07 utc | 16

The crimes of the empire can be listed and listed and listed, the depradations humans suffer as a result of those crimes could evoke an equally lengthy catalog. We will never complete either for the material for both documents continues to grow while we record our discoveries of past crimes.
Eventually Iraq will cure itself. Once people recognise that their privations are universal and documenting the cause of them is less useful than fixing the central issue, which is a community whose shibboleths have become irrelevant to the current circumstances of humans within that community.
The odds of it being the destroyers who provide the commonly subscribed to aphorisms of the ‘new Iraq’, are negligible, for exactly the same reasons that amerikan cliches about freedom and democracy ring hollow for most Iraqis. amerikan culture is irrelevant to a huge chunk of amerikans, what chance then that it could generate anything useful for an ancient and well developed society such as Iraq, which has survived so long by being true to itself?
Nevertheless amerika will leave some indelible marks on Iraq, yet another of the societies it has failed to conquer. The marks amerika leaves behind will be the usual, the obeisance to greed, which will appeal to Iraqi sociopaths just as it has to sociopaths everywhere else amerika has touched, the emphasis on process ahead of outcome will be adopted by those of the Iraqi elite who care little for their rich culture. So parts of Iraqi judicial systems will have justice measured by how well the process adheres to an arcane construct too rigid to be effective working in the specificities that a court case (being an at attempt to resolve the differences between unique individuals) contains.
Murderers will go free because the law enforcement officials completed a form incorrectly, while the innocent will get punished for crimes they didn’t commit because ‘the rules’ deny them use of witnesses. That aspect of amerikan law, the one that liberal amerikans call ‘the constitution’ in revered tones normally reserved for deities, is loved by elites because it provides an out for every rich person who plays it correctly while making justice unattainable for those who are not rich. I mean that is basically the problem which the Wapo reporter has with the alleged ‘sheik’ system. At the moment any old member of a tribe can get justice if a doctor stuffs up. There are insufficient parasites – judges, expert witnesses, a legion of attornies; copping their bite of the cherry.
In the end Iraqis will take the pieces of amerikana they cannot purge from their system, mix that in with the shared values of a 4000 year old society and devise their own system complete with attending jargon, which will enable their society to function fairly & effectively in a world where injustice is the preferred norm.
I back Muqtada al Sadr ( epub pdf) as the human most likely to provide that deliverance. He is still a youngish man and is biding his time while exploring potential solutions. In addition to having the neccessary qualities to make him the preferred solution for old school Iraqis, his intelligence and seemingly innate understanding of amerikan imperialism and its flaws reveals an intelligence capable of melding the customs of pre illegal invasion Iraq, with the realities of post civil war Iraq.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Apr 3 2011 1:01 utc | 18

nguyen van troi

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 3 2011 2:21 utc | 20

r’giap #17, i couldn’t agree more.
debs
The marks amerika leaves behind will be the usual, the obeisance to greed, which will appeal to Iraqi sociopaths just as it has to sociopaths everywhere else amerika has touched, the emphasis on process ahead of outcome will be adopted by those of the Iraqi elite who care little for their rich culture.
yep

Posted by: annie | Apr 3 2011 19:51 utc | 22

@georgeg – I wonder how many pistols they put to Goldstone’s head to make him “retract”.

Posted by: b | Apr 3 2011 20:46 utc | 24

Gilad Atzmon on Goldstone’s U-turn

Posted by: claudio | Apr 4 2011 18:46 utc | 26