This Just In: the Real U.S. Iraq Agenda

[rodeodance]

4/5 on most recommended on yahoo yet.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/006221;_ylt=AhWipap8FfqCHZTa0ng30qms0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-
Tom Hayden: This Just In: the Real U.S. Iraq Agenda

Tom Hayden Thu Aug 25, 7:57 PM ET

The search for the "noble purpose" in
Iraq is more elusive than the search for weapons of mass destruction. But the logic of U.S. policy is being clarified in the present constitutional talks.

Let's summarize the situation at the moment:

1. The new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, has backed language "that would have given clerics sole authority in settling marriage and family disputes." {ny times, Aug. 21, 05]

2. Language in the current draft reserving 25 percent of the Assembly's seats for women is being defined as "transitional", which means it lacks constitutional character.

3. A former clandestine
CIA officer and current neoconservative analyst says on "Meet the Press" that "women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy."
.......

[rodeodance]

1. the revised versions by the WH is such a sell-out.

......With this shift, the US government has erased its last of its rhetorical rationales for the war, the claim that "liberty" and "democracy" and "womens rights" would be installed through armed persuasion in Baghdad. Now they are arguing that Americans should accept the emergence of a flawed Islamic state, just as similar Americans accepted slavery and disenfranchisement as the price of the original constitution.

There's a small practical problem with this revised vision. It is likely to intensify the war on two levels: Iraqis against the Americans and Iraqis against each other. I don't have a particular philosophical preference for centralized government, but the alternative in Iraq is a devolution to warring ethnic and religious fiefdoms under the control of the international market. Yoo, Brooks and Galbraith are silent on this untidy aspect of their scenario, with Yoo even reminding Americans that we had to go through the "fiery experience" of civil war before becoming a nation. Leaving aside the fact that Americans threw the British out by force, that's a macabre future for Iraqis who were promised "liberation." Since the civil war will not be won militarily, the Administration will argue that the occupation must be permanent.

If this sounds mad, manipulative or both, what does it reveal about US intentions in Iraq?

It suggests that the American purpose has been to destroy Iraqi nationalism, as in the previous Baathist state and the continued de-Baathification policies.

[newswolf56]

2. I believe the Bush Administration's secret intention in Iraq...

from the very beginning was to advance the cause of Islamic theocracy by removing the Baathist secular state. Allowing the escape of bin Laden (and the re-emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan) is part of this same agenda. The agenda itself is a foreign-policy extension of the Grover Norquist scheme to build a Christian/Muslim alliance on the basis of mutual fundamentalist hatreds: of women, gays, "abominations," liberty itself. This is not tinfoil-hat dementia; here are three links:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010514/dreyfuss

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=11209

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1398055,00.html

(Note that one of these links is to a Rightist site: even the secular conservatives are terrified by the implications of the Norquist scheme.)

The underlying purpose of such a scheme is the imposition of theocracy -- no matter whether Christian or Islamic -- to facilitate maximum tyranny: this in service to the global oligarchy's scheme to concentrate the world's wealth, totally dis-empower anyone who has to work for a living no matter their status (bourgeois, service worker, blue-collar etc.), and reduce to utter nonpersonhood the poor, the elderly and the disabled. In a phrase, class struggle: the one analysis we have all been taught is taboo, the ultimate "don't go there." But the only analysis that -- especially in the context of "peak oil" -- makes absolute sense of the present.

[wli]

3. yes, they're trying to start a New Dark Age n/t

[delen]

4. There never was a "noble" purpose

the much touted constitution is meaningless because it depends on the Iraqi people being willing to follow it.As the the American backed Iraqi government sits cloistered in "Green Zone" hammering out details the rest of the country seems to be devolving into feudal city-states around it.
More and more it seems that the actual purpose of invasion was to create chaos. This way * could privatize and secure oil production and if Iraq and its people burned around it well, too bad. In their that is *co's best case scenario the various Iraqi factions would be so busy fighting each other that the US soldiers would be an after thought. And with a few well placed bribes money or weapons this could go on for a very long time.
What would be the best course of action for the US?
At this point I don't know if we pull out entirely we risk creating another Cambodia, but fighting a war without end is equally pointless.

[struggle4progress]

5. kick

[bemildred]

6. I dunno if I buy this.

It has the merit of making sense of events that otherwise just look lunatic, and it is consistent with other interpretations of US foreign policy that I have seen in diverse places. The points he makes about the consistency of this with past policy are good ones. I guess I'll have to keep an open mind.

[struggle4progress]

7. There may be some aspects of limited chaos and feud that ..

.. would-be empire builders find convenient ...

[bemildred]

8. Yeah, but things can get out of hand ... nt

[struggle4progress]

9. The technocrats might like something like the Nigerian situation. eom

[bemildred]

10. Yes, much more "manageable".

Although Mr. Obasanjo does have his problems from time to time.
But he is a good employee.

[Eloriel]

11. The neocon on MTP said this, exactly

His name is Gerecht:

"Actually, I'm not terribly worried about this. I mean, one hopes that the Iraqis protect women's social rights as much as possible. It certainly seems clear that in protecting the political rights, there's no discussion of women not having the right to vote. I think it's important to remember that in the year 1900, for example, in the United States, it was a democracy then. In 1900, women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we'd all be thrilled. I mean, women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy. We hope they're there. I think they will be there. But I think we need to put this into perspective."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8926876

[bemildred]

12. Hey, he's getting paid, what's the problem? nt