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The Great American Disconnect
Iraq Has Always Been "South Korea" for the Bush Administration
Finally, the great American disconnect may be ending. Only four years after the invasion of Iraq, the crucial facts-on-the-ground might finally be coming into sight in this country -- not the carnage or the mayhem; not the suicide car bombs or the chlorine truck bombs; not the massive flight of middle-class professionals, the assassination campaign against academics, or the collapse of the best health-care service in the region; not the spiking American and Iraqi casualties, the lack of electricity, the growth of Shia militias, the crumbling of the "coalition of the willing," or the uprooting of 15% or more of Iraq's population; not even the sharp increase in fundamentalism and extremism, the rise of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the swelling of sectarian killings, or the inability of the Iraqi government to get oil out of the ground or an oil law, designed in Washington and meant to turn the clock back decades in the Middle East, passed inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone -- no, none of that. What's finally coming into view is just what George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, the top officials of their administration, the civilian leadership at the Pentagon, and their neocon followers had in mind when they invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003.
But let me approach this issue another way. For the last week, news jockeys have been plunged into a debate about the "Korea model," which, according to the New York Times and other media outlets, the President is suddenly considering as the model for Iraq. ("Mr. Bush has told recent visitors to the White House that he was seeking a model similar to the American presence in South Korea.") You know, a limited number of major American bases tucked away out of urban areas; a limited number of American troops (say, 30,000-40,000), largely confined to those bases but ready to strike at any moment; a friendly government in Baghdad; and (as in South Korea where our troops have been for six decades) maybe another half century-plus of quiet garrisoning. In other words, this is the time equivalent of a geographic "over the horizon redeployment" of American troops. In this case, "over the horizon" would mean through 2057 and beyond.
This, we are now told, is a new stage in administration thinking. White House spokesman Tony Snow seconded the "Korea model" ("You have the United States there in what has been described as an over-the-horizon support role… -- as we have in South Korea, where for many years there have been American forces stationed there as a way of maintaining stability and assurance on the part of the South Korean people against a North Korean neighbor that is a menace…"); Defense Secretary Robert Gates threw his weight behind it as a way of reassuring Iraqis that the U.S. "will not withdraw from Iraq as it did from Vietnam, 'lock, stock and barrel,'" as did "surge plan" second-in-command in Baghdad, Lt. General Ray Odierno. ("Q Do you agree that we will likely have a South Korean-style force there for years to come? GEN. ODIERNO: Well, I think that's a strategic decision, and I think that's between us and -- the government of the United States and the government of Iraq. I think it's a great idea.")
David Sanger of the New York Times recently summed up this "new" thinking in the following fashion:
"Administration officials and top military leaders declined to talk on the record about their long-term plans in Iraq. But when speaking on a not-for-attribution basis, they describe a fairly detailed concept. It calls for maintaining three or four major bases in the country, all well outside of the crowded urban areas where casualties have soared. They would include the base at Al Asad in Anbar Province, Balad Air Base about 50 miles north of Baghdad, and Tallil Air Base in the south."
Critics -- left, right, and center -- promptly attacked the relevance of the South Korean analogy for all the obvious historical reasons. Time headlined its piece: "Why Iraq Isn't Korea"; Fred Kaplan of Slate waded in this way, "In other words, in no meaningful way are these two wars, or these two countries, remotely similar. In no way does one experience, or set of lessons, shed light on the other. In Iraq, no border divides friend from foe; no clear concept defines who is friend and foe. To say that Iraq might follow 'a Korean model' -- if the word model means anything -- is absurd." At his Informed Comment website, Juan Cole wrote, "So what confuses me is the terms of the comparison. Who is playing the role of the Communists and of North Korea?" Inter Press's Jim Lobe quoted retired Lieutenant-General Donald Kerrick, a former US deputy national security adviser who served two tours of duty in South Korea this way: "[The analogy] is either a gross oversimplification to try to reassure people [the Bush administration] has a long-term plan, or it's just silly."
None of these critiques are anything but on target. Nonetheless, the "Korea model" should not be dismissed simply for gross historical inaccuracy. There's a far more important reason to attend to it, confirmed by four years of facts-on-the-ground in Iraq -- and by a little history that, it seems, no one, not even the New York Times which helped record it, remembers.
How Enduring Are Those "Enduring Camps"?
At the moment, the Korea model is being presented as breaking news, as the next step in the Bush administration's desperately evolving thinking as its "surge plan" surges into disaster. However, the most basic fact of our present "Korea" moment is that this is the oldest news of all. As the Bush administration launched its invasion in March 2003, it imagined itself entering a "South Korean" Iraq (though that analogy was never used). While Americans, including administration officials, would argue endlessly over whether we were in Tokyo or Berlin, 1945, Algeria of the 1950s, Vietnam of the 1960s and 70s, civil-war torn Beirut of the 1980s, or numerous other historically distant places, when it came to the facts on the ground, the administration's actual planning remained obdurately in "South Korea."
The problem was that, thanks largely to terrible media coverage, the American people knew little or nothing about those developing facts-on-the-ground and that disconnect has made all the difference for years.
Let's review a little basic history here:
You remember, of course, the flap over Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki's February 2003 claim before a Congressional committee that "several hundred thousand troops" would be needed to effectively occupy a "liberated" Iraq. For that statement, the Pentagon civilian leadership and allied neocons laughed him out of the room and then out of town. Sagely pointing out that there was no history of "ethnic strife" in Iraq, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz termed Shinseki's estimate "wildly off the mark." His boss, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, concurred. "Far off the mark," he said and, when the general retired a few months later, pointedly did not attend the ceremony. After all, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were planning to take and occupy Iraq in a style that would be high-tech and, in manpower terms, lean and mean. Given an administration-wide belief that the Iraqis would greet American troops as liberators or, at least, make them at home in their country, they expected the occupation to proceed smoothly -- on a "Korea model" basis, in fact.
Here's what Washington Post reporter Tom Ricks wrote in Fiasco, his bestselling book about the occupation, on the administration's expectations that February: "[Paul] Wolfowitz told senior Army officers… he thought that within a few months of the invasion the U.S. troop level in Iraq would be thirty-four thousand, recalled [Johnny] Riggs, the Army general then at Army headquarters. Likewise, another three-star general, still on active duty, remembers being told to plan to have the U.S. occupation force reduced to thirty thousand troops by August 2003. An Army briefing a year later also noted that that number was the goal 'by the end of the summer of 2003.'"
At present, approximately 37,000 American troops are garrisoned in South Korea. In other words, the original plan, in manpower terms, was for a Korea-style occupation of Iraq. But where were those troops to stay? The Pentagon had been pondering that, too -- and here's where the New York Times has forgotten its own history. On April 19, 2003, soon after American troops entered Baghdad, Times' reporters Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt had a striking front-page piece headlined, "Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Four Key Bases in Iraq." It began:
"The United States is planning a long-term military relationship with the emerging government of Iraq, one that would grant the Pentagon access to military bases and project American influence into the heart of the unsettled region, senior Bush administration officials say. American military officials, in interviews this week, spoke of maintaining perhaps four bases in Iraq that could be used in the future: one at the international airport just outside Baghdad; another at Tallil, near Nasiriya in the south; the third at an isolated airstrip called H-1 in the western desert, along the old oil pipeline that runs to Jordan; and the last at the Bashur air field in the Kurdish north."
The Pentagon, that is, arrived in Baghdad with at least a four-base strategy for the long-term occupation of the country already on the drawing boards. These were to be mega-bases, essentially fortified American towns on which those 30,000-40,000 troops could hunker down for a South-Korean-style eternity. The Pentagon was officially not looking for "permanent basing," as it slyly claimed, but "permanent access." (And on this verbal dodge, an administration that has constantly redefined reality to fit its needs has ducked its obvious desire for, and plans for, "permanency" in Iraq. As Tony Snow put the matter this way only the other day, "U.S. bases in Iraq would not necessarily be permanent because they would be there at the invitation of the host government and 'the person who has done the invitation has the right to withdraw the invitation.'")
When the reporting of Schmitt and Shanker came up in a Rumsfeld news conference, the story was essentially denied ("I have never, that I can recall, heard the subject of a permanent base in Iraq discussed in any meeting…") and then disappeared from the New York Times for four years (and most of the rest of the media for most of that time). It did not, however, disappear from Pentagon planning. Quite the contrary, the Pentagon began doling out the contracts and the various private builders set to work. By late 2003, Lt. Col. David Holt, the Army engineer "tasked with facilities development" in Iraq, was quoted in a prestigious engineering magazine speaking proudly of several billion dollars already being sunk into base construction ("the numbers are staggering"). Bases were built in profusion -- 106 of them, according to the Washington Post, by 2005 (including, of course, many tiny outposts).
For a while, to avoid the taint of that word "permanent," the major American bases in Iraq were called "enduring camps" by the Pentagon. Five or six of them are simply massive, including Camp Victory, our military headquarters adjacent to Baghdad International Airport on the outskirts of the capital, Balad Air Base, north of Baghdad (which has air traffic to rival Chicago's O'Hare), and al-Asad Air Base in the Western desert near the Syrian border. These are big enough to contain multiple bus routes, huge PXes, movie theaters, brand-name fast-food restaurants, and, in one case, even a miniature golf course. At our base at Tallil in the south, in 2006, a mess hall was being built to seat 6,000, and that just skims the surface of the Bush administration's bases.
In addition, as the insurgency gained traction and Baghdad fell into disarray as well as sectarian warfare, administration planners began the building of a massively fortified, $600 million, blast-resistant compound of 20-odd buildings in the heart of Baghdad's Green Zone, the largest "embassy" on the planet, so independent that it would have no need of Iraq for electricity, water, food, or much of anything else. Scheduled to "open" this September, it will be both a citadel and a home for thousands of diplomats, spies, guards, private security contractors, and the foreign workers necessary to meet "community" needs.
The Media Blind to the Bases
From 2003 to the present, the work building, maintaining, and continually upgrading these bases (and their equivalents in Afghanistan) has never ended. Though the huge base-building contracts were given out long ago, consider just a couple of modest contracts of recent vintage. In March 2006, Dataline, Inc, of Norfolk, Virginia was awarded a $5 million contract for "technical control facility upgrades and cable installation," mainly at "Camp Fallujah, Iraq (25 percent), Camp Al Asad, Iraq (25 percent), [and] Camp Taqaddum, Iraq (25 percent)." In December 2006, Watkinson L.L.C. of Houston was awarded a $13 million "firm-fixed-price contract for design and construction of a heavy aircraft parking apron and open cargo storage yard" for al-Asad Airbase, "to be completed by Sept. 17, 2007." In March 2007, Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems was awarded a $73 million contract to "provide recurring requirements such as operations and maintenance support for base local area network, commercial satellite communication, technical control facility, and circuit actions, telephone, land mobile radio and both inside and outside cable plant installations.... at 13 bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and six other nations which fall in the United States Central Command Area of Responsibility."
And major base building may not be at an end. Keep your eye on Iraqi Kurdistan. According to Juan Cole, the Kurdish press continues to report rumors that American base-building activities are now switching there. Little is known about this, except that some in Washington consider Iraqi Kurdistan an obvious place to "redeploy" American troops in any future partial withdrawal or draw-down scenarios.
These, then, were the Bush administration's facts-on-the-Iraqi-ground. Whatever anyone was saying at any moment about ending the American presence in Iraq someday or turning "sovereignty" over to the Iraqis, for American reporters in Baghdad, as well as the media at home, the "enduring" nature of what was being built should have been unmistakable -- and it should have counted for something. After all, those American bases, like the vast embassy inside the Green Zone (sardonically dubbed by Baghdadis, "George W's Palace"), were monstrous in size, state-of-the-art when it came to communications and facilities, and meant to support large-scale American communities -- whether soldiers, diplomats, spies, contractors, or mercenaries -- long term. They were imperial in nature, the U.S. military and diplomatic equivalents of the pyramids. And no one, on seeing them, should have thought anything but "permanent."
It didn't matter that those bases were never officially labeled "permanent." After all, as the Korea model (now almost six decades old) indicates, such bases, rather than colonies, have long been the American way of empire -- and, with rare exceptions, they have arrived and not left. They remain immobile gunboats primed for a kind of eternal armed "diplomacy." As they cluster tellingly in key regions of the planet, they make up what the Pentagon likes to call our "footprint."
As Chalmers Johnson has pointed out in his book The Sorrows of Empire, the United States has, mainly since World War II, set up at least 737 such bases, mega and micro -- and probably closer to 1,000 -- worldwide. Everywhere, just as Tony Snow has said, the Americans would officially be "invited" in by the local government and would negotiate a "status of forces agreement," the modern equivalent of the colonial era's grant of extraterritoriality, so that the American troops would be minimally subject to foreign courts or control. There are still at least 12 such bases in Korea, 37 on the Japanese island of Okinawa alone, and so on, around the globe.
Since the Gulf War in 1990, such base-creation has been on the rise. The Bush, Clinton, and younger Bush administrations have laid down a string of bases from the old Eastern European satellites of the Soviet Union (Romania, Bulgaria) and the former Yugoslavia through the Greater Middle East (Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates), to the Horn of Africa (Djibouti), into the Indian Ocean (the "British" island of Diego Garcia), and right through Central Asia (Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan, where we "share" Pakistani bases).
Bases have followed our little wars of recent decades. They were dropped into Saudi Arabia and the small Gulf emirates around the time of our first Gulf War in 1991; into the former Yugoslavia after the Kosovo air war of 1999; into Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the former Central Asian SSRs after the Afghan war of 2001; and into Iraq, of course, after the invasion of 2003 where they were to replace the Saudi bases being mothballed as a response to Osama bin Laden's claims that Americans were defiling the holiest spots of Islam.
In effect, when it came to bases in the post-9/11 years, the emphasis was, on the one hand, encircling Russia from its former Eastern European satellites to its former Central Asian SSRs and, on the other hand, securing a series of bases across the oil heartlands of the planet, a swath of territory known to the administration back in 2002-2003 as "the arc of instability." Iraq was, obviously, but part -- though a crucial part -- of such imperial dreaming about how to dominate the planet. And yet the military ziggurats that made those dreams manifest, and all the billions of taxpayer dollars and the obvious urge for "permanence" that went with them, were largely left out of mainstream reporting on, debate about, or discussion of the occupation of Iraq.
Iraq as Korea, 2003-2007
The administration remained remarkably tightlipped about all this building activity and what it might mean -- beyond periodic denials that any such efforts were "permanent"; and, with rare exceptions, even when journalists reported from Camp Victory or other major bases, they never managed to put them on the reportorial landscape. Those bases -- and the colossus of an "embassy" that went with them -- just weren't considered all that important.
Perhaps for reporters and editors, used to an inside-the-Beltway universe in which the United States simply could not act in an imperial manner, the bases were givens -- like the American way of life. Evidently, for most reporters, there was, in a sense, nothing to notice. As a consequence, there has been endless discussion about Bush administration "incompetence" (of which there has been plenty), but not the quite competent planning that left such structures impressively on the Iraqi landscape. If the subject wasn't exactly blacked-out in the United States, it did, at least, undergo a kind of whiteout.
So much about Iraq was up for discussion, but the preponderant evidence on the ground, so utterly solid, carried no weight. It was evidence of nothing. For American reporters, as for American Secretaries of Defense, the full-scale garrisoning of Planet Earth is simply not a news story. As a result, most Americans have had next to no idea that we were creating multibillion dollar edifices on Iraqi soil meant for a near eternity.
Remarkably enough, when asked late last year by pollsters from the Program on International Policy Attitudes whether we should have the "permanent" bases in Iraq, a whopping 68% of Americans said no. But when the issue of bases and permanency arises at all in our press, it's usually in the context of Iraqi "suspicions" on the subject. (Oh, those paranoid foreigners!) Typically, the Los Angeles Times cited Michael O'Hanlon, an oft-quoted analyst at the Brookings Institution, saying the following of the President's endorsement of the Korea model: "In trying to convey resolve, [Bush] conveys the presumption that we're going to be there for a long time.... It's unhelpful to handling the politics of our presence in Iraq." No, Michael, the bases are our politics in Iraq.
Generally, the Democrats and their major presidential candidates line up with O'Hanlon. And yet no significant Democratic proposal for "withdrawal" from Iraq is really a full-scale withdrawal proposal. They are all proposals to withdraw American combat brigades (perhaps 50,000-60,000 troops) from the country, while withdrawing most other Americans into those giant bases that are too awkward to mention.
Suddenly, however, discussion of the "Korea model" has entered the news and so put those bases -- and the idea of a permanent military presence in Iraq -- in the American viewfinder for what may be the first time. You only have to look at Iraq today to know that, like so much else our imperial dreamers have conjured up, this fantasy too -- of a calming Iraq developing over the decades into a friendly democracy, while American troops sit tight in their giant base-towns -- is doomed to one kind of failure or another, while the oil lands of the planet threaten to implode.
The Korea model is just one of the administration's many grotesque, self-interested misreadings of history, but it isn't new. It isn't a fantasy the President and his top officials have just stumbled upon in post-surge desperation. It's the fantasy they rumbled into Baghdad aboard back in 2003. It's the imperial fantasy that has never left their minds from that first shock-and-awe moment until now.
Give them credit for consistency. On this "model," whatever it may be called, the Bush administration bet the store and, on it, they have never wavered. Because of some of the worst reporting on an important topic in recent memory, most Americans have lived out these last years in remarkable ignorance of what was actually being built in Iraq. Now, perhaps, that great American disconnect is beginning to end, which may be more bad news for the Bush administration.
Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is the co-founder of the American Empire Project and, most recently, the author of Mission Unaccomplished: Tomdispatch Interviews with American Iconoclasts and Dissenters (Nation Books), the first collection of Tomdispatch interviews.
Copyright 2007 Tom Engelhardt
50 Comments so far
Show Alldougrambo: Well It's morning and I feel the same, haven't turned on the TV yet, have gone out and looked skyward to see if any pigs are flying. None up there, guess our two leaders haven't been impeached yet.
You are correct, a little humor is good for the soul, but when I first read your letter where you mimicked the far right, I thought you were one of my neighbors. I have heard those same comments from several, mostly well educated, higher income citizens, who faithfully attend a church and actually believe Bush was put into power by God. I do believe the far right are the minority, but they do vote and therefore all too often control.
One major problem with moderates and many liberals is, they will not support or vote for a candidate because of one or two issues they may differ on. Therefore, many don't bother to vote and we get stuck with what we have.
For example: I do not agree with everything John Edwards says, but I sure do wish he was our president. Of course he's rich, a lawyer and he pays a lot for haircuts, lives in a mansion and looks so young, no real experience and on and on. Maybe I'll just stay home on election day and piss and moan when Rudy and his second pick get elected. If Rudy is smart, he'll pick Cheney, now there's a man who knows the score.
Wouldn't that be swell? I'm getting sick again, time to watch the news, see if any more people have died in Iraq.
We all must get togeather next time; other than our families, time is the only thing of importance we really have, and time is runing out.
Dear Saila: Do you think if I had lost my way I would even be here? I was trying to have a litle fun. A little humour can be a good thing at times. Besides our government is a joke it just that after 6 years its not very damn funny anymore. Cheers!
Doug-Rambo,
Have you lost your way? Go back to Faux News, man, where you belong. This site is for reasonable people.
dougrambo
Ha! I was just thinking last night or earlier today
that if we ever got to the point where we have the
government WE want (of the people instead of corporations,
etc, etc), what would all those neocons and people with
the "Love it or Leave it" bumper stickers do? Would they
all leave???
KaneJeeves, yes you ate your cake and your still hungry and salivating. Your looking around the room and find some people have hardly touched theirs yet and they appear to have a received a bigger piece then your remembered one..... oh, what to do?
Luckily you have gained considerable mass from your appetite for past cake eating and the current cake owners look rather weak and pathetic and are also of questionable origins.... You are now clearly remembering that you didn't really eat your cake - that it just disappeared. Yes, that's it they stole my cake and the only right thing to do is get it back..... It's just the moral think to do... to save the planet.... and that whole pavlovian thing I've got going about cake.
You sound very much like a duck. No matter how hard you try to disguise your quack I think you are one!
This is for Evelyn Smith. I share your sentiments exactly. I was never in the military but I was born in 1950. I was a flag waving pledge allegiance to the flag kind of a guy. Remember one thing America is Great It's we the people. It's the government (mostly) that is bad. So be proud to be an American. Our government is not representing you and me. Its not our government its EXXON's and Hallburton's government bought and paid for. America is for the most part made up of decent hard working people with goals and dreams but maybe these last few years weve gotten distracted and duped we have to find a way to get back America that we know and love I hope to God it's not too late. But whatever happens America is Great and it's people are too!
Are you people blind? Thank God Bush is in the white house! Can't you liberal icon's or whatever you call yourselves think? Rush Limbaugh was right you can't appreciate that were fighting terrorists over there! What you liberals don't understand you just put down. Thank God for Hannity and Colmes here are two straight talkers that know the score! These people killed innocent men women and children and Saddam was part of it! There is plenty of proof by our boys in the CIA! If you watched Fox News like you should maybe you would know the truth! You people hate everything that's good about America. If you don't like America why don't you just leave! Bush is protecting our way of life! Our freedoms are at stake here people! Were over there killing Al Quadea. Bush has guts and Dick Cheney too! If a few Iraqis get killed that's sad but inevitable! I think most of the Iraqis getting killed have taken up arms against our boys and deserved to get killed instead of being grateful. They should fall down at our feet and kiss our boots that we liberated them from their former and sinful way of life! As mayor Guliani said on 911 thank God Bush is in the white House!
Can you believe that there is a major group of people in the United States that actually would applaud every word I just said! I thought I would remind you how a right wing neocon actually thinks. Makes ya kinda queasy doesn't it!!!
Feel good about this, Evelyn Smith - there aren't many coming from where you've been who have the courage for self-vivisection.
Naturally, it's a gruesome process. But no pain, no gain!
No matter what anyone says, no matter where the world goes, one always has the choice of owning one's own truth, or not.
If you've got it and you know it, clap your hands!
Right now I wish I had never signed up for Common Dreams. I just read this article and every letter written in response. It is truely depressing.
When a child, I was so very proud to be an American; as I began to age and learn some truths, I was not always proud of some things done in our nations past, what we actually did to the Indian nations and the Mexicans for example. Until recently, I never did know just how corrupt we have become, that is, if all I have just read is factual.
Yes, I was proud to be an American, proud to serve in our military for 23 years, proud of our freedom, of our free speech, of our constitution and of our rights, and, our free press.
I don't feel so proud anymore, for some reason, I now feel ashamed. I don't like that and wish it wasn't so. Wish like hope are four letter words though, all they are are words which by themselves are just words.
What do we do to make it right? Vote, write our congressmen, rally behind the human waves of humanity who are demaning fairness and justice for all? Where are they?? I'm gonna go watch the cable news some more, see what's happening with Paris Hilton, nothing else on today, maybe I'll feel better tomorrow.
First they replace the General running Iraq with an Admiral, then they replace the Head of the Joint Chiefs with an Admiral....
Two Carrier Groups are now in the Persian Gulf with another due in a few weeks...
Trying to get as many "boots on the ground" in Iraq as they can...
Can you say Invade Iran by September? Well maybe not an invasion, just a little heavy bombardment and taking over a few Oil facilities...
Seems more like the German occupation of Serbia than it does like Korea. The "Korean model," ie. divide the country, set up a puppet regime and defend it, is what failed in Vietnam.
The bottom line of course is that the neocons had every intention of a permanent occupation from the start and are desperate to keep what they cannot have in the face of insurmountable resistance and spreading chaos.
I'm as liberal as the day is long, but something about the Iraq invasion has irked me beyond my own kneejerk reaction that ANYTHING the Bush administration does is wrong. If OPEC basically has the world by the you-know-whats and can bring a country to its knees almost at will, and if Oil will be the most important fuel resource for at least several decades, doesn't it make sense that the US should try to break OPEC's stranglehold as a means of self-defense? And wouldn't taking control of Iraqi oil (by means of the hydrocarbon laws and permanent bases) be a way to do that?
I don't like the idea, I don't like the method, I utterly hate the ideology, but nevertheless the argument seems to make sense. Where am I wrong?
It looks like the courageous Iraqi resistance would kick the mercenary armies of the coalition of the murderers out of Iraq. Is the U.S. in the business of promoting democracy or building permanent military bases on the graves of more than 600,000 Iraqis and Americans who have lost their lives in Iraq?
You make me laugh, but at the same time I feel sorry for you. Your assumption is as wrong as your method of "self-defense". Just don't let the oil companies and MSM get wind of your ideas, lest they may support you as the next president.
KaneJeeves June 8th, 2007 1:30 pm
There's a job waiting for you at Chevron. Maybe you can even get an oil tanker named after you.
KaneJeeves--
Let's just leave out the small detail that we are going in to loot another country's natural resources. Seems we have been taking for granted what we just roll over and grab, setting up bases, pointing missiles wherever the hell we want- that it doesn't even occur to us that anyone would question the rightness of all our bootprints over everything.
I've noticed since Common Dreams started posting comments that the trolls try to be more subtle here than at other sites usually by starting out their comments with "I'm so liberal that...." Come on Kane....OPEC isn't the only source of oil in the world....why doesn't the US just accept the fact that forcing people to market at the end of a gun just isn't going to work any more? Some countries have some products that you don't and if you want to do business you have to learn how to do it properly. There's no more easy money to be made.......just look how expensive it is to get oil from your number one supplier next door!
all empires leave garrisons in occupied countries. they become handy targets when the inevitable fall comes
the worst of all is Gitmo, they wont remove it even though the local government does not want it
I personally like the Dr Ron Pauls argument about foreign policy. Pull away from millitary "bases" around the world and promote democracy by example and not occupation. I find myself even as a liberal being more and more intrigued by this mans ideas. Sadly Fox, Cbs, Msnbc, and Cnn have already made up their minds that Dr Paul is crazy and the idea that "American foreign policy may actually cause our problems" nothing but a conspicacy theroy. I like to think that there used to be a day when a politian like Ralph Nader or Ron Paul would actually get the national attention that they deserve.
The first war between imperialist powers to redistribute colonial loot started in 1898. The rhetoric was the new – liberation from old oppressors, but result was the same - bases in Cuba and Philippines. Both are still there after more than century with almost 800 new bases and still growing.
Some historian argue that by boycotting Security Council in the summer of 1950, which led to the first undeclared though UN sanctified war in the history of the United States, Joseph Stalin put a trap for Americans, into which plain spoken Harry Truman mindlessly walked in. We are still in that trap 57 years later.
History only will tell what kinds of trap constitute our bases in Central Asia in vicinity of Russia and China. Pentagon might think them to be advanced bastions; better generals may view them as gigantic Cannes waiting for incoming Hannibal. Generalship in this country is wanted as history of wars in the last 50 years amply illustrates.
If not defeated from inside by alert citizens or rulers (like in former USSR), empires usually come down in flames and smoke. This time it might be different for radioactive smoke is too horrible to contemplate.
We live in the most asymmetric situation ever: total control over the most total weaponry and over the most disconnected and blind to reality domestic population. It looks self-evident that only anarchy (a.k.a. neo-liberalism, libertarianism etcetera) can do what organized opposition cannot even dream about – dismantling of the Empire. We can trace anarchy almost everywhere now: on Wall Street, Pentagon, Administration with its internecine wars disguised under incompetency mask.
Everywhere you can see extreme polarization between words and deeds on both side of the isle. It means tensions; and tension leads to cracks. We'll do well if we greet these developments.
Also...while im ranting. I dont understand how people cant see the obvious here. The Bush administrations entire purpose for going to war and exploiting 9-11 was to put a long term millitary presence in the middle east to insure the protection of oil resources. It also allows a convient place to launch new wars from in close range to west central asia. The general population of this country is so naieve and blind it is depressing. We truly have become a nation of sheep. Is it 1984 yet?
Read "War is a Racket" by Smedley Butler and you will see who the American soldiers actually fight for. America needs to connect with its vets before the government kills all of us.
Hoa binh
Vitaly: I agree, and would add that the Creative forces of this universe support the Light and persons committed to social justice. The cracks emerge because that which is based on tyranny cannot hold forever; or as Martin Luther King said, the universe arcs towards justice.
Who remembers, "God bless the grass (green movement) that grows between the cracks; they roll the concrete over it, to try to keep it back. The concrete gets tired from what it has to do, it breaks all open and the grass grows through. God bless the grass."
In Korea, Vietnam and now, Iraq, we have, for whatever reasons (oil,empire,bases,Bush boy's delusions, anti-communism) put ourselves in the middle of someone else's fight. No good came, or will come, of this.
Our blood and treasure and the blood and treasure of others is being sacrificed to the greed, incompetence, hubris and stupidity of our leaders. Leaders of both major parties.
In 2008 I think an old fashioned campaign of progressive populism at home and neo-isolationism abroad would generate enormous support.
Bring the troops home.
Close the bases.
Spread democracy by example, not by force.
Health care, child care, infrastructure, clean air/water.
Renewable energy.
Public Transit/Housing.
All of these would be much closer to achieving if we spent the money here instead of in Iraq, etc.
The $ amounts we spend on Empire are staggering (I would type in an amount but it would be hard to keep track of all those zeros) and the amount of blood and misery is a criminal abomination.
It looks to me that one of the first things to do would be to embarrass, humiliate, expose, fight, weaken and otherwise discredit the bastards in the MSM.
My wise old Dad told me it's a very bad idea to antagonize the Press but today there are tools and weapons to use in the fight.This forum is one of them. So is the Internet.
As for American Democracy: Don't Mourn...Organize!
p.s.to Siouxrose...It was Pete Seeger, God bless him, from a late 60's album that I think was also called "God Bless the Grass"
Ah Siouxrose, you are person who knows what they speak of. At least about grass.
Hoa binh
We know it is immoral to kill, and steal.Our country was created by killing, and stealing.We have been killing, and stealing to get what we want ever since.This truth is to harsh for us to admit, because it goes against everthing we claim to beleive in. Every baby killed in our wars was killed by you. Have a good day. Peace.
Read Greg Palast's ARMED MADHOUSE for Plan A & Plan B for Iraq's oil.
The Neocon's want the oil privatized so that EXXON, CHEVRON, etc., get to run it, pump it, own it, make profits on an abundance of cheap crude. The Iraqi's get to keep about 29-31 per cent of existing wells and pipelines ... mostly destroyed and in bad shape. How considerate of us.
BUT Cheney suddenly tripped over to Saudi Arabia last Thanksgiving at the ruffled behest of the Royals. Other plan: They want the Iraqi oil nationalized ... the current Iraqi "government" is supposed to sign on for this, with the deal to keep production in Iraq below the Saudi level of output, but overseen and managed by the BIG CORPORATIONS. This guarantees OPEC price control and keeps the Saudis in the power seat in terms of quantity produced or not.
All those U.S. military bases in Iraq are obviously to keep Iraq, Iran and anybody else in line, with Israel's nuke missiles bristling all over the place.
One way or the other, the name of the game is POWER AND CONTROL. Who cares whether a particular resource really belongs to the country itself with all those helpful "multi"-national Corporations around in league with the World Bank and World Monetary Fund and the wealthiest and/or most ambitious, greedy, corrupt leaders of any country you want to name?
For the shady details and much more that should curl your hair if it's straight or straighten it if it's curled and turn it all gray regardless, get ARMED MADHOUSE.
And also read, re the G8 summit, the latest AMY GOODMAN interview with former Economic Hit Man, JOHN PERKINS, whose new book, "The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals and the Truth about Global Corruption," will also straighten, curl and turn gray-to-white your hair. However, John Perkin's last statement makes it clear what direction we have to go with our current CORPORATOCRACY to change it all around. How to do that is another thing. Person to Person, House by house, Block by Block ... educating and organizing on a single issue ... it's been done before; it just has to be done massively and quietly this time, until enough say, A ha! and then ...
www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/05/149254
Cee Miracles, thanks for the link to democracy now. definitely worth reading.
I've always wondered why when the us administration officials argue that the local government can request the removal of us forces no one brings up the Cuban's opinion of Gitmo... Has the us gov't EVER withdrawn its forces from any base it has taken over in the last 50 years???
The only reason the Bush administration has any credibility is owing to the fact that press pundits agree to take it seriously.
No matter what senseless, vapid pronouncement Bushboy makes, commentators seize upon it as noteworthy as though he weren't an inveterate liar.
Isn't clear by this time there is no "there" there?
Bush never tells the truth. He's a salesman. The message is to pay attention to what this administration does, not what it says. This is just common sense.
But the press agrees to a suspension of common sense in deference to the fact that Bushboy occupies a very high office.
From the git-go, the huge investments in bases and the American consulate complex spoke loudly and clearly of an intention to remain in Iraq. No matter what was being said, this much was known early on.
There is nothing to debate and no basis for all this conjecture about a "North Korea" model. The Bush administration's motives are transparent. Bush is a mouthpiece for a corporate/Pentagon agenda. Snatch the resources and control the strategic region.
Why does the press ignore the obvious? Why has it cooperated with this administration and pretended right along that Bushboy is not a strategic liar, when that is what he is and has always been?
That is the question Tom should focus on instead of this somewhat tedious exposition of how Bushboy has led the nation down the garden path.
NORTH OF THE BORDER, SALIA: To suggest I'm a troll...what a hoot - you guys are getting too paranoid. Part of being open minded is being able to consider all arguments, even if you find them offensive.
I'm in the middle of Armed Madhouse and from my read of it, OPEC IS IN FACT holding the world by the balls. Maybe I misread. And as far as I can tell, Oil IS IN FACT the most important resource for decades to come. Incorrect? Again, from the book and other sources, Iraq holds enough oil to disrupt OPEC. Wrong? So given those assumptions, it seems that invading Iraq, however offensive that is, may be defensive in the sense that if someone ELSE gets hold of it, who hates the US, they could do lots of damage (before we get a chance to right Bushes wrongs).
I know it's nasty, against everything progressives believe in, but there it is. And then again, maybe I'm giving Bush too much credit, maybe it's pure greed and world domination.
Don't attack me personally, because in fact I AM as liberal as they come. Attack the ideas...like a good liberal should!
OPED only has the world by the balls if the world (make that the Western world) continues to suck up a disportortionate amount of the remaining carbon resources, while encouraging emerging economies to adopt our overly consumtive lifestyes. The status quo, "business as usual", keep the oil flowing, and gas prices DOWN, mentality, has to change. To justify continued occupation of a country on this premis is unconsionably.
Namvet: "Depends what grass means." (LOL)
We cannot see what is really going on because we are blinded by the past.
This is when analogies go wrong.
American policies of colonial rule in Asia Minor have now left us only with the obvious reason for being there: To protect the profits of multi-national oil companies.
Siouxrose - is there more than one kind of grass?
Cruxpuppy, you helped me to feel better, thank you.
Cruxpuppy? Where did you pick that one up? I used a name from the phone book, I'm actually a straight male, a one time faithful Republican who would vote for anyone I felt was honest and had commen sense. Sometimes they fooled me.
Actually, I was mimicking my mother. She is a good person just deceived. The problem as I see it is people don't read! They get their opinions from TV and depending on what station they watch they become brainwashed over time and don't even know it. What is the first thing governments try and control- our news media!!! Which is beginning to happen more and more. I've become wary of what I hear especially TV we need to realize as they planted stories in Iraq newspapers they are manipulating our news too by inclusion or more often by exclusion.
While I admire Tom Engelhardt for the work that he does and the information he provides, this article exhibits a very glaring omission and no great revelation or news. Those who followed their noses and long ago downloaded the document "Rebuilding America's Defenses" prepared by The Project For The New American Century in 1999 will recognize everything discussed above as the culmination of the "vision" delineated there.
One of the main objectives of the Iraq invasion all along has been to re-deploy American troops from bases in Europe where they are no longer near those regions where our war-mongers think they will be needed and/or intend to use them and put them near those areas where they are best situated to "protect and promote American ideals, values, and way of life." (The quotations indicate the emphasis put on these points made in that document.) Read here: OIL.
For this to be discussed as "new" is a ridiculous farce and proves once again that American media is either complicit or just a bunch of mindless sheep. Of course I'm not referring to T.E., but I am very surprised he did not connect all the dots here. Oh well.
Here's what I read this morning. The American army and some Sunni militia have allied themselves to fight "al Qaeda". Since al Qaeda is virtually non-existent, one can only assume that the Sunnis are using U.S. forces to arrest and kill their Shia rivals. This kind of bizarre disinformation is presented with a straight face by the MSM as a "sign of progress." Talk about a "disconnect."
Liberals "Hate America"
Republicans and conservatives have been using this line for decades with great success. They wrap themselves in the flag to vilify anyone who criticizes their ideology or lawlessness by identifying themselves as "America." Ronald Reaganism and George Bushism are not America, and neither is the Republican party.
Millions of unthinking Americans support Republicans policies that shake the foundations of our society. "Greed is Good," has replaced In God We Trust as our national slogan. Huge and immensely rich corporations have monopolized capitalism to point that it's now a Members Only club.
Free Trade and preemptive wars are good for the owners of the MIC and the Monopoly Media, but they aren't good for the average American. Even as middleclass living standards are being squeezed, the bonanza of profits from the war are being skimmed off at the top. There is no trickledown.
The rich beyond your wildest dreams have elevated their own Self Interest over National Interest out of greed and lust for world domination. That's what liberals hate.
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Evelyn Smith: Regarding your comment: "I have heard those same comments from several, mostly well educated, higher income citizens, who faithfully attend a church and actually believe Bush was put into power by God. I do believe the far right are the minority, but they do vote and therefore all too often control." I'd like to shed some light. It has been an enormous moral paradox for me to watch Christians go along with Bush as if he had a mandate from on high, as the poor get set up for worse straights, and this war of choice destroys lives and livelihoods. I spoke to an Ex-Jesuit on this topic (very intelligent man with an open mind) and he reminded me of U.S. foundation roots in Calvinism. I asked him to further explain. The nature of Calvinism, a kind of basic root fundamentalist sect of Protestantism is that if you have money, that PROVES God's blessing; and if you don't, then obviously you are doing something wrong to incur God's lack of favor. This is how they justify more money headed to the already wealthy, and less to those in need. And given the power of greed ("the love of money as root of all evil") it becomes strategic policy to invoke actions that grow wealth. In the US that has become war, so we see the 2 prime evils, outright murder of others AND outright worship of mammon ($) now merged together and ironically the pillars of that form of modern Christianity that indeed does back Bush. Our mundane law holds us accountable (sometimes) at our level of understanding of the crime. A drunk sometimes gets leniency or one compromised by lack of mental balance. From a spiritual context, I wonder how much leverage will be granted to those who grew drunk on their own false sense of privilege at such direct expense to others. In this case is ignorance of spiritual law going to provide any basis for clemency? I can't speak for the lords of karma, but I do believe a higher justice than that practiced by flawed mortal persons (particularly in times as spiritually perverse and polluted as our own) exists and will eventually weigh in its "verdict." (This can be seen to follow souls into future lifetimes, so I do get some satisfaction--given a strong imagination--in picturing the kinds of lives the likes of Bush and Cheney will be forced to face.)
Vince Lawrence,
To take your thought a step further, the idea of America as a world empire goes back much further than PNAC, at least to Wilson and the US entry into WWI--"to the victors go the spoils". And it's not only the Repubs. It's the Dems that got us into all the major wars in the last century, and the DLC with its 'Progressive Policy Institute' is now the new PNAC. Senator Clinton is Bush in a skirt, in this regard.
Siouxrose, You obviously are more informed on many subjects than I. I do see where you did state it correctly; it is not money that is the root of ALL evil, it is the "LOVE OF MONEY" which is.
I also agree, that some of my very wealthy friends and some neighbors and relatives, believe thay have been blessed by God and that is why they have money. And maybe some are, God does not inform me of whom he blesses. I am very aware, that some have a great deal of money because they are greedy people, who take advantage of the less fortunate and they also primarily think only of themselves, being incredibly ignorant or not caring about important things, like the declining state of Earth's enviroment, or of our freedoms, etc.
That is not to say that many wealthy people do not deserve what they have worked for and earned, nor are all rich people uncaring to others less fortunate. Some are however, and some profess to be noble Christians. As Christ said in so many words "Beware, you will know them by their deeds." I see the deeds of many politicians and puffed up ministers, and I despise them. We all see them, or we all should see.
My main thoughts and perhaps wasted time in writng my opinions on this website is this. I wish that some who share some of my opinions, would stop berating ALL politicans and political parties and those who opt to run for office. There are some who would surely be far better than those now in control. I will vote for any good Democrat or any good Republican, (if one should happen to show up.) even if I do not agree with everything they say.
I admire Ralph Nader for what he has done, but I hope he stays out of the next election, for he will NEVER win, he will only attempt to prove some good points; he is a spoiler in that arena. The votes he took in Florida, insured Bush was re-elected. Guess I'm ramblin again so will shut up and go see if Paris Hilton has committed sucicide yet. That is the big news again for today. Poor baby, she is being screwed.
Siouxrose - thanks for that explanation on Calvinism roots. That makes a lot of sense.
From a spiritual perspective, there is one other way of looking at our present experience here. This is a point of view presented at length in the Law of One book series, at least that is where I heard it. This earth experience has been set up as a place where entities have the opportunity to make a choice between Service to Self or Service to Others. This is just choosing a path to learn from, eventually all paths lead to learning that we are all One. This point of view can be somewhat comforting from an objective standpoint - Bush, Neocons, Corporatists have made a choice of Service to Self path. Progressives have made the choice of Service to Others path. Many people haven't really made a clear choice yet. So from a certain point of view all this insanity actually makes sense. I'm sure many would disagree. Anyway, this made a lot of sense to me. Here is website:
http://www.llresearch.org/main.htm
Dougrambo - I don't see government as inherently bad at all. Government for the poeple can be very affective - if folks agree and work together. We can accomplish much more together than we can individually. To me the problem is more that the elites are in control of our government and are using it to push their own interests. The antidote is just what others in this string have talked about - we must Organize!
Evelyn: As per this "does God love me cause I got this here Mercedes Benz" issue... consider the following: 1. To the one much is given, much is expected. 2. Whatsoever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me. 3. It is harder for a rich man to get to heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Now I know a very jolly multi-millionaire guy who REALLY believes that's a Biblical misprint and it rather meant, "Get the concierge to park that camel outside, would you. It's just so damned inconvenient when they doo doo all over the furniture!"
Gmkaake: I am familiar with the book mentioned, and we can also see the dual perspective in Course in Miracles as per the choice between fear and love. My favorite discussion on this matter comes from Edgar Cayce's channeled material on the lost continent of Atlantis. To extreme-left brain advocates, should you read on, take this as a symbolic cautionary tale, the best of fiction! (In these times, hasn't what most would take for fiction crossed over into the non-fiction realm?) Cayce said that one of the things that brought down Atlantis, (literally where the elements of nature rebelled and kind of went on strike. A lot like our bees and not that different from the melting ice caps, etc.) was due to an immense schism within the populace between those who served self, i.e. sons and daughters of Belial, and those committed to the greater good, the children of the Law of One. (This is where that book got it from, I believe.) Here's the thing, and it also speaks to those who ask for tolerance of all religious beliefs. That tolerance has to stop when religion advocates war and environmental desetruction, since arguably it is THOSE policies that are wreaking havoc on the world we were all given to thrive within. That is OUR right to life! If someone wants freedom, in my mind, it stops when they step on my toes, or try to poison me, kill people I love or even people they have no business killing which galvanizes My sense of justice. This is why I have elaborated at length in many prior comments on the FALSE analogy between God (as promoted by fundamentalist patriarchal religions) and the entity best understood as Mars/Ares to ancient Greeks and Romans. The archetype of that warrior is WHAT is being worshipped, or there would be no war; the lion's share of the RICHEST nation on this planet would not go to building more and more weapons while children starve. Nor could a "leader" stand at any podium and claim to answer to a "higher father," (purporting that, of all blaphemies, to be Jesus who taught everything Bush is not: like peace, turn the other cheek, forgive your enemies, help the poor, etc.) without a lot of people being already deluded enough to mistake the father in their authoritarian church chants from the ACTUAL majestic FORCE that is so beyond human conception. Here's something to ponder, the axiom, "God made man in his image and likeness" does NOT work in reverse! IF you consider the time period that gave rise to that conception, who had power? White men. So the conclusion drawn was that "God" was just a mighty white guy. I mean of all absurdities! This segues into the important discussion on atheism on another article post. Intellect and enlightenment arguably challenge the OLD notions of God, but they cannot eradicate the realization that obviously something greater than human beings is behind the mechanisms of this amazing univerrse. And here's one to light your sockets... forget this notion of CREATION as something finite. Every thing in this universe from orbiting atoms to similarly orbiting planets operates on something akin to magnetism, or opposing yin and yang forces. We also see this exquisitely portrayed in DNA as the continuous reach of Yang for Yin and eternally back again. Even if you are homosexual, it is the fundament of opposing forces (planety of gays act out these opposite parts) that MAKES for sexual allure. Our universe is in a continuous state of making love. Big bang is a masculine projection of what it's all about, a sad ejaculatory self-centered fantasy of Creation based NOT on HE alone, but the dance between the eternal HE and the eternal SHE. EVERY one of us incarnates as both... and most of us retain the orientation from former lives. As a staight woman, I am often aware that I have more yang than most men, and realize where it came from. And I know many straight men who are very Yin. They are artists, chefs, kayakers, gardeners, etc. We are all a sum of universal sources and for the Aquarian Age to be born, we cannot maintain those mindsets that held us hostage and forced HIS-story to endlessly repeat, mostly as a litany of war. Some New Age beliefs are too dismissive of the very REAL pain people are undergoing even IF this planet is earth school 101 for souls reaching for their innate Divinity, that inexplicable seed of life (not the biological part, the SOUL part) that animates their being. And by the way, there IS intelligent design and there IS evolution... in the ultimate sense the two are not mutually exclusive. (And that doesn't mean I believe the idiots who try to say Creation happened in 6 days and people hung out with dinosaurs like the Flintstones.) marvel on...
Oops (got carried away) should read: "Big bang is a masculine projection of what it's all about, a sad ejaculatory self-centered fantasy of Creation based on HE alone, rather than the dance between the eternal HE and the eternal SHE."
This is exactly what the PNAC plan called for. Nice to know who's really running the show, and why.
Mr. Bacon: You are quite correct, and I don't believe that anything in my remark put the blame on Republican "neocons" only. It was a non-partisan remark meant only to point out the fact that the plan delineated in the PNAC document has always been out in the open and plain for anybody interested enough to look at honestly.
As I've argued here before, "we" progressives are a very small minority here and everywhere and many Americans who are "disgusted" with the Iraq debacle would have nothing negative at all to say if only it were "going well." Never mind that it is illegal, or that innocents are dying in desperate anonymity, or that a burning hatred is being generated that will not be exstinguished for decades, possibly even longer. If our "generational crusade" were only going well, most Americans would be happy as clams.
RE: PERMANENT BASES? IMPERIALISTIC, SURE. BUT ALSO STUPID-A**ED...
Sure, it's the Project for the New American Century plan for imperial domination: coming out and announcing itself, testing the waters of domestic and world opinion, trying to 'soften up' the public for acceptance.
But this is where imperial fantasy meets reality, and I think the fantasy's going to lose out, just as the invasion and its pretexts are - belatedly - coming to appear a disaster to the greater public. As Engelhardt writes:
"You only have to look at Iraq today to know that, like so much else our imperial dreamers have conjured up, this fantasy too — of a calming Iraq developing over the decades into a friendly democracy, while American troops sit tight in their giant base-towns — is doomed to one kind of failure or another..."