Iraq a Failed Imperialist Venture

by Haroon Siddiqui

Friday, July 3, 2009 by The Toronto Star

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/03-13


American troops were not welcomed with flowers in Iraq but their departure
from cities and towns has been.

Iraqis celebrated National Sovereignty Day Tuesday as U.S. troops were
yanked out of populated centres and put into remote bases.

In time, even that hidden presence will begin to grate on the Iraqis, just
as a U.S. military base in Saudi Arabia had spurred Osama bin Laden and
others.

Yet this limited troop pullout is being hailed as a triumph. One is reminded
of Richard Nixon's 1973 boast of "peace with honour" in Vietnam. The 1973
Paris treaty that led to the U.S. troop withdrawal was a face-saving
formula.

In Iraq, too, the U.S. has little choice but to get out.

Not only did the Iraqi invasion and occupation prove the limits of military
power, it also exposed how incapable America has become at nation-building.
Its postwar incompetence was stunning.

America plunged Iraq into chaos, shattered the infrastructure and destroyed
the society, reducing human beings to their basest instincts. They turned
on each other and found safety only in family, tribe, clan and sect.
Shiites and Sunnis, who had lived together for ages, ethnically cleansed
each other's neighbourhoods, which to this day remain separated by
barricades, walls and checkpoints.

Having unleashed the forces that put Iraq's three main communities at war
with each other, the U.S. toyed with the idea of dividing the country into
the Kurdish north, a Sunni centre and a Shiite south, much like the British
had divided India in two in 1947.

Having created the chaos, violence and jihadism, the U.S. said, in colonial
fashion, it had to stay to curb the chaos, violence and jihadism. Having
crippled the state, it had no choice but to prolong the occupation until
the natives were ready to govern themselves.

Iraq exhausted America more than the 1917-32 British invasion and occupation
sapped the British. It also created killing fields on a vast scale.

Yet Iraqis have been brushed out of the American narrative – Iraq is free of
Saddam Hussein, it is democratic, it is stabilized, it is this and it is
that.

There's nary a mention of how many Iraqis are dead (between 100,000 and 1.2
million, depending on who's counting), how many maimed (not known), how
many displaced (4 million), and how many tortured with Saddam-like methods
in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere (not known).

Besides the damage to U.S. credibility, and not just in the Muslim world,
the Iraq adventure empowered Iran far more than the U.S. would ever
acknowledge.

Finally, the quest for oil may also turn out to be a mirage.

This week, Iraq's oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, a U of T graduate,
put development rights up for international bidding. No more no-bid
contracts for U.S. firms, unlike under the Bush-Cheney domain.

Nor did George W. and Dick get what they wanted out of the Status of Forces
Agreement. Passed by the Iraqi parliament last fall, it stipulates that all
U.S. troops must be out by Dec. 31, 2011. No U.S. military operation can be
carried out without Iraqi consent (a provision Hamid Karzai can only dream
of). Iraqi soil cannot be used by the U.S. to launch a war on any neighbour
(Iran).

Iraq is the imperial adventure that both Stephen Harper and Michael
Ignatieff, one a neo-con hawk and the other a liberal hawk, fully backed. A
monumental failure in judgment, their common stance was, and remains, an
affront to the collective will of Canadians.

-- 
Facts are sacred ... but comment is free

The US entered the war under the pretense of eradicating the threat to the 
world of WMD in the hands of a dictator, and to free the people of Iraq 
from Saddam and his human rights violations as stated in the UN 
resolutions.Bush said from the start we were not in it for the oil and we 
would leave as soon as possible.

So in the end, when the US does exactly what it said it would do, and there 
is no material reward, and The US has spent nearly a trillion dollars to 
implement a democracy and a police force and re-establish an 
infrastructure, the conspiracy theorists who had alleged that the US was in 
it for material gain now resort to saying that the US effort has failed 
since they are not going to get the material gain so essential to the core 
of their own theories. I suppose its inconceivable to the tiny mind of the 
conspiracy theorists that this is mere evidence that the US was never in it 
for material gain in the first place. Instead of apology, they conjure up 
another insult, one of incompetence. You people are disgusting and your 
slanted bias is as immovable as your skulls are thick.

Sydney of Astatula wrote:

> The US entered the war under the pretense of eradicating the threat to the
> world of WMD in the hands of a dictator, and to free the people of Iraq
> from Saddam and his human rights violations as stated in the UN
> resolutions.Bush said from the start we were not in it for the oil and we
> would leave as soon as possible.
> 
> So in the end, when the US does exactly what it said it would do, and
> there is no material reward, and The US has spent nearly a trillion
> dollars to implement a democracy and a police force and re-establish an
> infrastructure, the conspiracy theorists who had alleged that the US was
> in it for material gain now resort to saying that the US effort has failed
> since they are not going to get the material gain so essential to the core
> of their own theories. I suppose its inconceivable to the tiny mind of the
> conspiracy theorists that this is mere evidence that the US was never in
> it for material gain in the first place. Instead of apology, they conjure
> up another insult, one of incompetence. You people are disgusting and your
> slanted bias is as immovable as your skulls are thick.

I take it you are referring to the Canadians, since this article appeared in
the Toronto Star.

-- 
Facts are sacred ... but comment is free

Robin T Cox wrote in
news:UQO3m.51710$OO7.9856@text.news.virginmedia.com: 

> Sydney of Astatula wrote:
> 
>> The US entered the war under the pretense of eradicating the threat
>> to the world of WMD in the hands of a dictator, and to free the
>> people of Iraq from Saddam and his human rights violations as stated
>> in the UN resolutions.Bush said from the start we were not in it for
>> the oil and we would leave as soon as possible.
>> 
>> So in the end, when the US does exactly what it said it would do, and
>> there is no material reward, and The US has spent nearly a trillion
>> dollars to implement a democracy and a police force and re-establish
>> an infrastructure, the conspiracy theorists who had alleged that the
>> US was in it for material gain now resort to saying that the US
>> effort has failed since they are not going to get the material gain
>> so essential to the core of their own theories. I suppose its
>> inconceivable to the tiny mind of the conspiracy theorists that this
>> is mere evidence that the US was never in it for material gain in the
>> first place. Instead of apology, they conjure up another insult, one
>> of incompetence. You people are disgusting and your slanted bias is
>> as immovable as your skulls are thick. 
> 
> I take it you are referring to the Canadians, since this article
> appeared in the Toronto Star.
> 

Actually, I was referring to you and people like you.

Sydney of Astatula wrote:

> Robin T Cox wrote in
> news:UQO3m.51710$OO7.9856@text.news.virginmedia.com:
> 
>> Sydney of Astatula wrote:
>> 
>>> The US entered the war under the pretense of eradicating the threat
>>> to the world of WMD in the hands of a dictator, and to free the
>>> people of Iraq from Saddam and his human rights violations as stated
>>> in the UN resolutions.Bush said from the start we were not in it for
>>> the oil and we would leave as soon as possible.
>>> 
>>> So in the end, when the US does exactly what it said it would do, and
>>> there is no material reward, and The US has spent nearly a trillion
>>> dollars to implement a democracy and a police force and re-establish
>>> an infrastructure, the conspiracy theorists who had alleged that the
>>> US was in it for material gain now resort to saying that the US
>>> effort has failed since they are not going to get the material gain
>>> so essential to the core of their own theories. I suppose its
>>> inconceivable to the tiny mind of the conspiracy theorists that this
>>> is mere evidence that the US was never in it for material gain in the
>>> first place. Instead of apology, they conjure up another insult, one
>>> of incompetence. You people are disgusting and your slanted bias is
>>> as immovable as your skulls are thick.
>> 
>> I take it you are referring to the Canadians, since this article
>> appeared in the Toronto Star.
>> 
> 
> Actually, I was referring to you and people like you.

Then your remarks are as irrelevant as your knowledge of me and people like
me is scant.

What should be obvious is that people with views like yours are in the vast
minority now that the facts are starting to emerge about what has really
happened since 2001, and that you don't like the truth you are hearing.

Too bad.

-- 
Facts are sacred ... but comment is free

"Sydney of Astatula"  wrote ...

> The US entered the war under the pretense of eradicating the threat to the
> world of WMD in the hands of a dictator, and to free the people of Iraq
> from Saddam and his human rights violations as stated in the UN
> resolutions.Bush said from the start we were not in it for the oil and we
> would leave as soon as possible.
>
> So in the end, when the US does exactly what it said it would do, and
there
> is no material reward, and The US has spent nearly a trillion dollars to
> implement a democracy and a police force and re-establish an
> infrastructure, the conspiracy theorists who had alleged that the US was
in
> it for material gain now resort to saying that the US effort has failed
> since they are not going to get the material gain so essential to the core
> of their own theories. I suppose its inconceivable to the tiny mind of the
> conspiracy theorists that this is mere evidence that the US was never in
it
> for material gain in the first place. Instead of apology, they conjure up
> another insult, one of incompetence. You people are disgusting and your
> slanted bias is as immovable as your skulls are thick.

You ignore all the evidence that there was a desire to secure the Middle
East to protect America's resource interests. That desire was expressed in
public by PNAC, the Project for The New American Century, and many NeoCons.
It didn't come from any 'conspiracy theorists'; they simply pointed to what
those cheering on Bush were saying. Many of those were in or had influence
upon the Bush Administration.

Have you not seen promotional videos by those who were bragging about how
the invasion of Iraq would bring until commercial opportunities to American
and foreign countries ? Maybe where you are your broadcast networks choose
to sweep all the embarrassing evidence under the table, keep the gullible in
the dark, denied access to the truth ?

Even Bush's patsy; Colin Powell ( now hated by both sides ), admitted the
Bush Administration basically sold the world a pack of lies.

Of course Bush would say he wasn't doing it for the oil and America hasn't
turned such a profit but that isn't proof he didn't want the oil. Neither is
it proof that he went in for the oil but the fact the Bush regime had
already planned the invasion when he and other allied leaders had been
saying there were no such plans in place, against a background of NeoCon
policy stated in public and by Administration officials, leaves it as a
credibly arguable position. Bush lied America and others into this war on
simple pretext.

If your claim is true, the pursuit of oil were all imaginary, can you
explain why Bush & Co were so insistent that the Iraqi government passed
legislation which would place the overwhelming number of Iraq oil fields
under western companies' control ?

Simply ignoring the evidence that it was about oil doesn't make that
evidence go away. The 'conspiracy theorists' as you call them have nothing
to apologise for.