Our Quagmire - Their Goldmine
by adrien rain burke
June 29, 2005
Another year older, and nothing has changed in Iraq, except for the worse.
We are, in fact being told there may be 12 more years of war in Iraq! I could have told them that in the first place, but what they don't seem to know (or won't say) even now - and I am very patriotically prepared to tell - is that, should we leave now, or in 12 years, or 20, we can't win this war.
Why? We lost it within a month or two of our arrival, and I dare say that many who fight us now, actually were glad to see us when we first arrived. Mismanagement - whether from corruption, indifference, malice, or sheer incompetence has demonstrated to the occupied that we are not going to improve their lives much, if at all. And even worse, with our torture scandals - derived not from the stench of bad apples, but from a deliberate departure from the Geneva Conventions at the highest level - with our trigger happy shootings of civilians and (especially) journalists, our 'regime' looks almost as brutal as Saddam's. Just not so solicitous of the well-being of the citizenry in the matter of health, education and the functioning of their infrastructure.
So why hasn't Bush noticed that we aren't 'winning?' That we can't win? That the American public is actually beginning to notice the failure? That average Iraqis have entirely soured on our notion of 'democracy?' That the violence hasn't lessened but increased? Why do they keep promising us 'victory' in the face of all evidence to the contrary? Don't they know - can't they see?
Of course they know; they are stalling for time. Time is money, after all.
I personally don't believe that the government wants to leave Iraq and will stay no matter the cost in lives and taxpayers' money - longer than 12 years, if possible. As long as possible, win or lose. Unless we are simply driven out by a combination of intolerable casualties and the equivalent of a revolution here at home.
The terrible casualty rate will not stop it. Their safest secret is the coffins and the casualties that the media help them hide from us. The class that profits from war will not be losing any children there. And the fact that the dead and injured 'volunteered' clears our collective conscience neatly.
The shortfall of recruits will not stop it. They - I mean we - can afford mercenaries.
The economic disaster looming for America because of the war will not stop it. They will get their money, if they have to spend our last, borrowed, worthless penny to do it.
Ordinary demonstrations - now that they are kept in pens and almost wholly unreported - will not stop it. If a demonstration takes place in a locked basement and doesn't get on TV, did it happen?
The courts will not stop it. They do not answer to the courts. Consider their complete lack of compliance with court rulings regarding Guantanamo.
The increasing opposition of Iraqis will not stop it. We can always open fire on them.
And we probably can't vote the bastards out. I would be shocked should any real peace candidate ever get very close to power in either party - the money decides our elections.
There is no intention of leaving Iraq on the part of this administration, and a Democratic administration, should one be able to overcome the planned vicissitudes and hurdles of those lovely GOP-owned voting machines, would probably be just as indebted to the oil-and-money establishment as Bush is. We've built 14 permanent bases there - why would we be leaving? No doubt, those bases will be fortified and guarded as never before. One of the things that could speed our leave-taking would be the unavailability of fresh young things to die for Halliburton. But no matter, for now, the problem is solved: the private contractors pay very very well - we taxpayers pay the mercenaries many times what a mere soldier earns - and they don't have to be American, not even hopeful immigrants. They can come from anywhere, so long as they are prepared to fight for Big Oil - and Big Bucks.
Of course, the American economy (that means the people) will eventually suffer greatly - but Halliburton and friends will get their money. War is not a cost to these people, it is a cash cow. So, though we can't win, they can't lose - unless at some point We the Sheople get tough, and put all of them in jail. Nice idea, but not likely.
I am always a little amused by the well-meaning antiwar people who say we must stay there to 'fix' what we've 'broken.' Yeah we broke it, but we can't fix it, because we didn't go there to fix things. We went there to steal. OK, OK, we didn't go there to steal, Big Oil went there to steal - to ransack the country and the longer they can hang in there, the more loot they will get. We, the people, are the lookouts. Our sons and daughters are merely guarding them while they do it. The most decent thing we could do now is to obey the wishes of the vast majority of Iraqis and get out of their country.
Obviously, that won't be soon. There is no exit strategy because even if the oil isn't flowing as smoothly as it should, Halliburton* gets paid handsomely for its (poorly delivered) 'services' - meals, portable buildings, etc. - all of the things that armies have always, in the past, done for themselves, and at much lower cost. But the cost is ours - the benefit is theirs.
It's a quagmire for us - and a goldmine for them.
What is needed is a vast American resistance.
*I am using Halliburton here as a generic term for any of the players in the unfathomable tangle of war profiteers in Iraq.
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