(crossposted from the frontpage of MyLeftWing)
First, it’s all about oil and war profiteering. It was never about WMDs, terrorism, Saddam (except in the mind of the Dupe-in-Chief), or the benign export of democracy. It’s always been about the 300 billion barrels of light sweet crude astride which Iraq sits, and the profits to be made by the military-industrial complex in a major mideast conflict.
(more over the fold...)
A consortium of corporate pirates, gangster politicians, greed-besotted independent slick operators, renegade billionaires, stake-holders in the military-industrial complex, and criminally-insane rightwing academics such as Irving Kristol formed a nasty little outfit known as the Project for a New American Century, a think tank devoted to future American empire. Participants included a bunch of two and three-time-losers left over from the criminal Presidencies of Richard ‘I am not a crook’ Nixon, and Ronnie ‘trickle-down-economics’ Reagan.
These are the folks who so presciently foresaw the 9/11 attack (with their idea that all America needed was a new Pearl Harbor), and how such an event might be used as a convenient pretext for implementing a plan for worldwide domination. Isn’t that just the sort of thing we hated about Hitler? They were chickenhawks almost to the man, and embraced the vilest philosophies imaginable, such as that of Leo Strauss.
Leo Strauss' Philosophy of Deception
By Jim Lobe, AlterNet. Posted May 19, 2003.
(snip)
It's hardly surprising then why Strauss is so popular in an administration obsessed with secrecy, especially when it comes to matters of foreign policy. Not only did Strauss have few qualms about using deception in politics, he saw it as a necessity. While professing deep respect for American democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical – divided between an elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow. But unlike fellow elitists like Plato, he was less concerned with the moral character of these leaders. According to Shadia Drury, who teaches politics at the University of Calgary, Strauss believed that "those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right – the right of the superior to rule over the inferior."
Source
PNAC of course is only the latest incarnation of an unfortunate conglomeration of moral misfits representing the forces of the military-industrial complex and American greed and avarice, which have long plotted to militarily dominate the world and to violently relieve others (specifically Iraq) of their resources. These are the natural heirs of the Robber Barons, the Rum Runners, and the Conquistadors.
1958-1991, Iraq: A Classic Case of Divide and Conquer
By Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General.
Iraq has been a target of U.S. covert actions since at least 1958, when a popular revolution led by Abdel Kassem overthrew the Iraqi monarchy, which was installed by Britain in 1921. In 1960, the new government helped found the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, to resist Western oil monopolies.
The CIA plotted Kassem's assassination and U.S. generals in Turkey devised a military plan, called "Canonbone," to invade northern Iraq and seize its oil fields. In 1963, Kassem and thousands of supporters were massacred in a CIA-backed coup.
More
These thugs have had their eyes on Iraq’s oil for decades. Dick Cheney, of course, is their guy in the Whitehouse. It is no great wonder why they refuse to reveal what took place behind closed doors in Cheney’s office when his Energy Task Force met with America’s Oil magnates. One does not divulge the planning of a crime.
The unlawful invasion of Iraq (a direct violation of the Nuremberg Accords and the Geneva Convention Against Aggressive War) and the subsequent occupation is not and has never been a war. It is a crime, a heist, a robbery, a strong-armed mugging on a grand scale. We went into Iraq for one reason and one reason only – oil – 300 billion barrels of light sweet crude to be exact, and of course all the bloody profits to be made by the military-industrial complex off the suffering of the millions.
This is a fact we have to face: for a certain well-connected segment of our society, war equals enormous profits. These people have been called ‘merchants of death’. A more common term is ‘war profiteer’. The one thing these people have in common, other than truckloads of money, is the willingness to violently impose untold heartache, death, and misery on their fellow human beings purely for profit. And bear in mind, these people are already obscenely rich.
The voracious greed of the ‘defense’ industry and the insatiable avarice of the oil industry have joined together in a despicable vortex of gluttony and money lust driving our ‘government’ into committing the gravest and most regrettable crimes against humanity.
DEFENCE is not like any other industry. Its output—the ability to deliver death and destruction, albeit mostly in the name of deterrence, peace and security—makes it unloved outside the communities where it provides jobs. With essentially one tax-funded customer per country—the government—that hardly matters. But the September 11th terrorist attacks on America may have fundamentally changed people's perceptions of the industry.
Byron Callan, a defence-industry analyst at Merrill Lynch, an investment bank, has an office next to what used to be the World Trade Centre in New York. “When the second plane hit, we all started to leave our building,” he recalls. “By the time the second tower fell, we looked up to see an F-15 fighter circling overhead. Everybody cheered and clapped. That's the difference: people are more defence-minded, and it's carte blanche for the defence budget. (emphasis added)
The Economist
All you have to do is look at a map of the region and put a few pieces of the puzzle together, and almost any fool can see what’s really going on there. We have strangle holds on Iraq (world’s 2nd largest oil reserves) and Afghanistan (gateway to Central Asia’s oil and natural gas reserves), neatly sandwiching Iran (world’s 3rd or 4th largest oil reserves, depending on who you ask). And the present saber rattling on Iran, and all the fuss about their nuclear program is just a convenient ruse to excuse the Bush thugs’ intent to take their oil. This map is a bit dated – but you get the idea.
So enough with the talk about ‘winning’ in Iraq, or ‘finishing the job’ - there is nothing to win and no job to finish. There is only a crime in progress, and the only proper thing to do is to end it.
There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth about what will happen if we just up and pull out. While well intentioned, such misguided concerns can only serve to prolong the agony. Just look at what’s going on despite our presence...and the fact is our presence is nothing more than an aggravating factor. Will the aftermath be pretty when we pull out? Hell no, but we should have thought about that before we went in. It’s too late to salvage anything from this debacle.
What we all need to realize is that the thugs who got us into this in the first place, have no intentions of leaving Iraq – EVER! That oil is still there, and they still want it – mean to have it in fact. That is why they are still building fourteen ‘enduring’ bases there to the tune of over $1 billion each. They are not doing that to hand them over to the Iraqis. They are doing it to protect what they now consider to be their oil. And they ain’t about to give it up.
Finding excuses to stay for even another day is playing right into the hands of those who don’t intend to leave anyway. Now they’re saying we need one last push for victory requiring an infusion of new troops – but don’t you worry...it’ll only be temporary. Right.
Everything the government says about getting out of Iraq is a lie. Every statement issued for public consumption is intended to fool us, divert our attention, or make us believe that we’ll eventually get what we want – when just the opposite is true.
In the year since Murtha called for a U.S. withdrawl, 790 Americans have been killed in Iraq and more than 6000 seriously wounded. Meanwhile the war machine rolls on unimpeded.
We’re being bombarded by bullshit about our many ‘options’ in Iraq. The truth is we are being offered no options. The only choice we’re being offered is to accept that we are never leaving Iraq, at least not until we’ve exhausted their oil reserves. Like it or lump it.
I, for one, don’t like it worth a damn.