The following two paragraphs are indicative of the problems and heated divide the United States and the Democratic Party finds itself in. They are from the late Benazir Bhutto's book, "Reconciliation-Islam, Democracy, and the West", Copyright 2008 by Benazir Bhutto, HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd St., New York, NY, 10022 pp. 109-109, Chapter 3-Islam and Democracy: History and Practice.
Bhutto wrote:
"London is not alone in having to take some of the responsibility for the failure of democratic institutions to grow and mature in Iraq both before and after independence. It is quite startling, in light of the two wars fought by the Americans against Saddam's Iraq, in 1990 and 2003, that the U.S. government gave material support and significant political, military, and economic support to Saddam during his 1980-1988 war with Iran. The assistance was both covert and overt, and aid supported by Senators such as Robert Dole was so pro-Saddam (agricultural subsidies, for example) that the media jokingly called Dole's party "Saddam Hussein's Other Republican Guards." It wouldn't be the first time (or the last, as we shall see in our discussion of Afghanistan) that a nation empowered a Frankenstein monster that turned against it, but it must be one of the more powerful and ironic examples of a policy turned upside down with ongoing historical consequences."
"The Western record in Iraq may have led both directly and indirectly to the current state of affairs. The center ruptured with the overthrow of Saddam's Sunni-dominated dictatorial regime, but the American occupiers were not prepared to fill the leadership vacuum. This war of choice, which had been successfully planned on the battlefield but was disastrously ill planned for what would follow, resulted in an extended sectarian battle for control of the country's land and resources. A de facto independent Kurdistan has emerged in the north, and an all but de facto Shiistan in the south. The western part of the country seems to be moving inevitably toward de facto Sunni domination. While the de facto partition of Iraq under a loose federal center would not be an illogical endgame to the current situation, the situation in and around the nation's capital, Baghdad, muddies the waters. Because Baghdad is ethnically mixed, partition cannot become a regional phenomenon. Instead, street-by-street ethnic cleansing is the tragic reality. It is a quagmire for the West and a great and unfolding tragedy for the people of Iraq. The United States finds itself in a colonial war in a postcolonial era, with no way to extricate itself from a mess that it plunged itself into, resulting in chaos for Iraq, the region, and itself. There are no fundamental democratic institutions on which to build an Iraqi democracy. Thus the stated subtext of the American invasion-the creation of a democratic Iraqi state that would become the first domino in the democratization of the Gulf and all of the Middle East-is seemingly unattainable."
Nothing accentuates the words of Bhutto, "The United States finds itself in a colonial war in a postcolonial era", than Bremer’s Orders which followed the invasion of Iraq. Examples are as follows: Order 1-deBathification , Order 2- Dissolve the Iraqi military and intelligence apparatus, Order 12 and Order 54- Trade Liberalization, Order 14- Prohibited media activity, Order17- Contractor and military immunity from Iraqi laws, Order 37 and 49- Replace progressive tax system with flat tax system, Order 40 and 94- Iraqi banking open to foreign ownership, Order 62- Bremer to determine who could run for office, Order 65 Iraqi Communications and Media Commission appointed by Bremer, Order 57 and 77-place American representatives in key decision making positions in the government ministries, Order 80, 81, and 83 Rewrote Iraq’s patent, trademark, and copyright laws. But the most obvious is Order 39. Provision-1, privatization, Provision 2-100 percent Foreign Ownership of Iraqi Businesses, Provision 3 National treatment of foreign investment, Provision-4 Unrestricted Repatriation of Profits for Foreign Investors, Provision 5-Forty Year Leases of Iraqi Real Estate by Foreign Entities and Provision 6 Disputes could be settled in international tribunals instead of Iraqi Courts. This is classic colonialism and imperialism in its most naked form. In fact, it bears striking resemblance to the U.S. orchestrated coup in Chile which brought forth the Pinochet dictatorship and his so called "economic reforms" as well as his abuse of power and crimes against humanity he is noted for. The major difference of course is in Iraq, all this is occurring under American military occupation. The imposition of this blueprint led to bloody resistance the Bush administration and the Pentagon labeled "insurgency". And now we learn of the negotiations between the U.S. with Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, and BP for control of production of Iraqi oil with Iraq’s Oil Ministry has been in its final stages. Whether the resistance ultimately substitutes the contracts with these companies to other foreign corporate suitors matters not, for the privatization of Iraqi oil will be complete. "Mission accomplished" will finally come to fruition, but violent resistance may haunt generations. Now maybe attention will move to the other Frankenstein’s monster Bhutto mentions, the one that will further conflate Middle East upheaval and instability.
The road to 9/11 and its continued bloody aftermath began in earnest at the tail end of the Carter administration when the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI decided it would be a good idea to train and fund a coalition of groups of mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan to give the Soviet backed government of President Mohammed Najibullah more problems than it could handle. For the Pakistani military, the strategy was to provide itself with more reach and influence. For the United States, it was to create a Vietnam type of quagmire for the Soviet Union and its success began when the USSR invaded Afghanistan on Christmas Day, 1979. Ironically, this Soviet quagmire that ultimately led to the implosion of the USSR now threatens us with the same fate.
Post cold war imperial ambitions of the U.S. have pushed the Middle East and Central Asia into intolerable peril for these regions the U.S. desires to control for unmatched hegemony. Benazir Bhutto knowing the true nature of the mujahideen coalition even down to each leader of each group and what they were capable of, warned George H.W. Bush in June of 1989, "Mr. President, I fear we have created a Frankenstein that will come back to haunt us" according to her book. The United States, blinded by the Wolfowitz doctrine, has not seen the warning signs until too late. It did not see bin Laden’s rebellion among its jihad network. It did not see the intransigence of the Taliban government concerning the price it wanted to extract for the Unocal oil pipeline through Afghanistan or the refusal to hand over bin Laden. Washington then had to become allied to Iran and Russia’s friends, the Northern Alliance, to topple what it created. Afterward, with former Unocal representative Hamid Karzai in charge in Kabul, the U.S. has underestimated the staying power and resurgence of its old creation, the Taliban and al Qaeda. Unfortunately also, Washington did not properly read the stability status of its friend Musharraf and the military dictatorship, the imbalance of funding the military, and the social imbalance that resulted. It did not see or want to see the still close relationships or ties the resurgent Taliban has with some in Pakistan’s military dictatorship as well with many in the population of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province. Now with the province in increasing Taliban control and the provincial capital of Peshawar in the crosshairs, the Bush administration’s pretense of protecting us from weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Islamic militants seems even more absurd. The United States was going to counter this situation by having Benazir Bhutto step back into the political process, but given the confluence of Pakistan’s U.S. backed military dictatorship with its old rebellious tools of a resurgent Taliban and mujahideen groups, her life and the plan were struck short. The plan of having her back in power whereby U.S. military assets would be allowed in the provincial area to remove the threat are gone. That leaves the U.S. with the destabilizing option of military strikes without Pakistani approval and yet another U.S. attack on a nation’s sovereignty. In the midst of this clear and present danger, the Bush administration along with its allies in both parties of Congress and Israel, are pushing for the destabilization of Iran with the possibility of air strikes in order to continue the Milton Friedman utopia dream for the Persian Gulf States, and in spite of the fact Iran has not attacked another country directly in the modern era of history.
In the United States, this move from covert to visibly overt imperialism is destroying the fabric of democracy. Contrast, if you will, the words of Roosevelt and his theme of having nothing to fear except fear itself when facing one of history’s most serious military threats with George W. Bush’s constant message of fear to the American people of mushroom clouds, and combined with the administration’s usurpation of Constitutional protections and precepts. In the end, all this hinders the concepts of a rising middle class, a sustainable energy policy, and any ability of an American lead in a secure democracy driven world, for in the end, history proves time and time again, democracy is never promoted through the barrel of a gun. Given the naked imperial ambitions hiding behind speeches of a noble purpose and cover from a compliant corporate media, the concepts of imperial colonialism and democracy are inevitably alien to one another. The question that arises for Democratic Party voters this fall is how to separate their representatives who have signed on and are protecting those responsible for this recklessness and those that represent the people and democratic principles. The external threats created by the machinations of imperial dreams which threaten our security are matched and exceeded only by the internal threat of the originators of these imperial dreams because that internal threat not properly dealt with is where our fall ultimately lies. Not only does "impeachment is off the table" and FISA bill modification attempts that further weakens the 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States not properly deal with this internal threat, it promotes and solidifies that threat in the face of an executive branch of government that ignores laws passed by Congress anyway through abuses of presidential signing statements. As the last left over fire cracker pops and the last left over bottle rocket sizzles through the night sky from this July 4th , 2008 independence weekend, Americans should reflect how just how far we’ve traveled into becoming that from which we fought to gain independence from.