With GWB's Iraq misadventure imploding politically, blowing out financially, and just plain old blowing up, one can only wonder at the positive possibilities of diverting Amerikkka's military expenditures elsewhere. Thanks to the U.S. Presidents' war-of-choice, the combined budgets for the departments of Defence and Homeland Security are now bigger than the total budget of any other nation, and growing each bloody day.
Imagine what you could really do with that cash right now in, say, the Hindu Kush, in aid of the hundreds of thousands suffering from the massive earthquake there. just imagine... a world without George W Bush and Amerikkka Uber Alles.
War in Iraq is Really All About Soil and Oil
by Robert Kimbrough
The Iraqi mission was accomplished in two months. Bush's "noble cause" was to secure oil fields and 14 strategic sites for permanent bases.
This American success was celebrated in Baghdad by the pre-planned "spontaneous" toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue and the seizing of Saddam's palace complex. The only other building occupied "to prevent looting" was the Ministry of Oil.
The ludicrous photo-op aboard the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln appalled those of us who had joined millions in the worldwide call "No Attack on Iraq," but we were so shocked by the banner "Mission Accomplished" and so amused by the awkwardly costumed president-as-pilot - Falstaff would have been jealous of Bush's codpiece - that we did not see the truth of the statement hung out before our eyes.
For once the Bush administration did not lie.
The mission was never about saving America from destruction by Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, was never about bringing democracy to the Middle East, was never about winning "the war against terrorists" - it was about oil and empire.
The coupling of our desire for empire and the need for oil beyond domestic sources became apparent only after the extraordinary military and industrial buildup during World War II.
As the war was winding down, President Roosevelt pledged the Saudi family of Arabia our protection in return for a free flow of oil from the Middle East to America.
After the war, Truman decided that the United States should keep substantial forces in Germany and in Japan. (We now have forces in 179 countries.)
The details of the "Plan for America's Future" (empire and oil) began to take shape in the 1970s with the birth of the neocons, who, in 1980, found a political home in the Reagan administration: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al.
Immediately, the United States urged Saddam to attack Iran, starting an eight-year war that ended in 1988 in a stalemate: Neither country lost or gained territory, but the armies of both countries were decimated, an outcome we engineered because we had helped both countries militarily and monetarily.
In 1990, Saddam turned his attention to Kuwait, hoping to get the extended seaports on the Persian Gulf that he failed to gain in the war with Iran. We tricked him into the invasion that we needed to forward our plans for oil and empire.
When Iraq occupied Kuwait, a huge U.S. underground air terminal suddenly was activated in Saudi Arabia, and that country was rapidly turned into an American staging ground for 500,000 troops.
The United States went to the United Nations to point out that Saddam had performed a pre-emptive strike against an unarmed sovereign state and got permission to expel the Iraqi occupiers of Kuwait.
Before moving to "mop up" the invading army, we bombed Iraq from Baghdad to the Kuwaiti border, demolishing the health and material infrastructure of the country: bridges, dams, hospitals, hotels, schools, radio and TV stations, communications systems, highways, and civilian populations in general.
Within weeks, Iraq had no army and a plagued society. As if this were not defeat enough, the United States forced the United Nations to place sanctions on Iraq, as punishment for having broken international laws.
Furthermore, Iraq was not "allowed" to rebuild its destroyed infrastructure. Then, as if this total destruction were not enough, the United States (and Britain), without U.N. authority, unilaterally declared "no-fly" zones over most of Iraq and began aerial photographic surveillance and air attacks by bombs and machine guns on the average of five days a week from 1991 to 2001, more often after 9/11, and even more by the summer of 2002, at which point we "knew" an attack on Iraq was coming.
Even if we had had an idiot in the White House, he would have known that after 13 years of photo surveys and bombing of every inch of Iraq, no WMDs could possibly have survived as a threat to our country and our "freedom."
March 19, 2003, did not begin the mission of securing for the United States the Iraqi oil fields and the land for 14 permanent military bases needed for our strategic control of the Middle East.
This mission was decades long in the planning and gradual implementation. No wonder that the new, "successful" administration wanted to celebrate on the USS Lincoln the accomplishment at last of the neocon's ultra right-wing goal.
Fourteen bases mean that so long as this administration is in control American troops will be stationed in Iraq.
Cindy Sheehan asked President Bush: "What is your 'noble cause'?" Cindy, the ugly answer is, "Oil and bases."
Bush admitted as much when he said that he would not bring the troops home now because we must honor our dead "by completing the mission" (italics added).
In blunt terms, "Mission Accomplished" means a continuous expenditure of blood for soil and oil.
Robert Kimbrough is a professor-emeritus of English literature at the UWMadison. He is a combat veteran of the Korean War, a colonel (ret.) in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, and an active member of Veterans for Peace.
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