For some time, I have been puzzling over the US insistance on Iraqi passage of the notorious "Oil Law" that grants petroleum extraction rights to US companies on highly favorable terms. What good is such a law, I reasoned, in the midst of an active insurgency that would disrupt the operations of any US energy company attempting to pump Iraqi oil?
The chilling answer became evident to me after considering the magnitude of the refugee flight from Iraq and the increasingly desperate situation of the Iraqi people. America intends to make Iraq uninhabitable. The ultimate counterinsurgency strategy is to drain the ocean of population in which the guerrilla fish swim. This diary explains what a Mad Max post-apocalyptic Iraq might look like.
In the science fiction fantasy film "Mad Max," a future Australia is ravaged by criminal gangs that prey upon highway travelers. A small band of courageous police patrol the highways, attempting to keep them clear of predators. Highways are the common thread connecting Iraq and the Mad Max scenario. Highway convoys are the life blood of American logistics in Iraq, and highways provide access to the critical pipelines and other oil infrastructure of Iraq. He who controls the highways and pipelines controls the wealth of the country.
The problem faced by the US military in Iraq is that civilians are always getting in the way. How much easier it would be if the entire country could be made into a free-fire zone, in which any "threatening" non-US vehicle could be destroyed at will. This can't be done today for fear of upsetting international observers and the Iraqi government. But what if enough people were persuaded to leave Iraq so that the remaining population could be confined to "security zones?" This would allow extrememly aggressive "policing" of petroleum and logistical routes and facilities.
The enormity of such a crime is breathtaking, but it is not beyond the ambition of the war criminals in the White House. Assuming the calculated depopulation of Iraq to be a goal makes sense of another puzzling announcemnent. The "Korea" strategy of a 50-year US military presence in Iraq is feasible only if the military gets the insurgency under control. With a sufficiently reduced "civilian" population, the US military's rules of engagement can be expanded to "kill anything that moves." This will gradually end the insurgency by making a desolate wasteland out of Iraq - a wasteland in which petroleum can be profitably extracted.
Once the highway routes and petroleum sites have been "sterilized," high-tech surveillance systems and quick-reaction military forces could monitor and eradicate any remnants of guerrilla resistance. Latter-day Mel Gibsons in Blackwater helicopters and patrol vehicles could blow away anyone who crosses their path. Thus, the conquest of Iraq's oil would be completed and the NeoCon victory secured.
To murder, plunder, steal, these things they misname Empire. They make a desolation and call it peace.
-- a conquered British Celt speaking of the Roman Empire, as recorded by a Roman historian.