Saturday, April 29, 2006
We Are Not Amused
No wonder they hate us. Put aside that dumb excuse for analysis from Dubya on Middle East distaste for America, "They hate our freedom."
What they hate is our greed, our sheer sense of entitlement to help ourselves to whatever natural resources will enable us to enrich ourselves at their expense.
In Kevin Phillips' American Theocracy, we learn that unlike the rest of the globe (and in particular, America), much of Iraq's oil remains in the ground. What Saddam was waiting to do was to barter new deals with distinctly non-Anglo-American oil firms,(China, France, Russia, India, Japan, Indonesia, Canada, and Germany had projects either agreed upon or under discussion with Saddam) once U.N. sanctions were lifted. That's why it was so important to U.S. and British interests to kick up the dust around Saddam's possession of WMDs, and then to invade Iraq on that pretext, thereby setting up the occupation and military bases that would perpetuate that occupation while the U.S. forced itself upon the Iraqi people.
As Phillips tells us, "Old-fashioned colonialists, regal and unembarrassed, took physical control of territories, sent in ostrich-plumed governors, minted coins, and printed local postage stamps on which kings or queens gazed proudly over scenes of natives cutting cocoa pods or harvesting tea. By contrast, petro-imperialism--the key aspect of which is the U.S. militrary's transformation into a global oil-protection force--puts up a democratic facade, emphasizes freedom of the seas (or pipleline routes), and seeks to secure, protect, drill, and ship oil, not administer everyday affairs. Still, the way in which the United States has begun to organize its national security and military posture around oil is hardly new in spirit, albeit unprecedented in scope."
No wonder the Bush Administration didn't have a plan for the governance of Iraq after the war. It's not part of the drill.
These shenanigans are nothing new. Phillips refers to the west's attempts to divvy up Middle Eastern oil resources as the modern era's "Hundred Year War." After the first world war had ended, Britain's Lord Curzon described the optimum oil scenario as an "Arab facade ruled and administered under British guidance and controlled by a native Mohammedan and, as far as possible, by an Arab staff. . . There should be no actual incorporation of the conquered territory in the dominions of the conquerer, but the absorption may be veiled by such constitutional fictions as a protectorate, a sphere of influence, a buffer state and so on."
Sound familiar?
The importance of Phillips' book can't be overstated. Neither can the growing feeling that we are going to have to come to terms with, and to a plan of action based on the fact that our way of life has been carved out at the expense of a lot of less fortunate people who justifiably think we're scum.
We may not be scum. We may be simply people who like our creature comforts and don't want to know at what cost they come.
Damn, but that's a state of mind that quickly turns to scum in the gloppy little pond that is the American mind.
# posted by Lulu Maude @ 11:07 AM 
Comments:
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I am glad I stopped by this morning..thanks for the new posts on Phillip's book :)
It totally amazes me that no plans were made to run Iraq after the fall of Saddam other than to expect Halliburton to do a half-assed rebuild and profit nicely from it. The populus(technological folks) that ran the country are either gone or afraid to step forward for fear of being murdered by the insurgency..which I can't blame them for.
We have torn their country into shreds, their infrastructure is toast and we(the universal we) are suprized they hate us?
We will hand this country over to the insurgents eventually because we don't have a friggin plan..and they in turn will get lots of aid from the UN to rebuild their country..but will they rebuild it? Or will they keep it in the dark,in sqalor and ruin..and most of all in fear..in order to maintain THEIR agenda of toppeling the west?
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It totally amazes me that no plans were made to run Iraq after the fall of Saddam other than to expect Halliburton to do a half-assed rebuild and profit nicely from it. The populus(technological folks) that ran the country are either gone or afraid to step forward for fear of being murdered by the insurgency..which I can't blame them for.
We have torn their country into shreds, their infrastructure is toast and we(the universal we) are suprized they hate us?
We will hand this country over to the insurgents eventually because we don't have a friggin plan..and they in turn will get lots of aid from the UN to rebuild their country..but will they rebuild it? Or will they keep it in the dark,in sqalor and ruin..and most of all in fear..in order to maintain THEIR agenda of toppeling the west?
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