Reports from Najaf state that smoke is rising from the Imam Ali Mosque where Iraqi insurgents are based and around which US Marines are deployed.
How many mistakes are Bush and the neoconservatives making at this moment?
It is Dr. Allawi who is demanding that those in Moqtaba al-Sadr's militia lay down their arms. It is US Marines surrounding the Mosque in an effort to enforce that demand.
Do the Bushies think that a Shiite Prime Minister will be able to take the blame for the destruction of the most sacred structure to Shi'as? Do they think that will shield them for the blame?
The problem is that Moqtaba and his followers believe Dr. Allawi is an American puppet. He and rest of the interim government were installed by the Bushies and are responsible for carrying out their will. Their authority is backed not by Iraqis, but by American troops. Moqtaba may be a demagogue, but at least he is an Iraqi demagogue and the armed me who follow his direction are Iraqis.
This will be blamed on Americans collectively, including those of us who from the beginning thought this war was a mistake.
In the beginning, the Bushies told the American people that Shiites, who were oppressed and murdered by Saddam, will welcome US troops as liberators. We who protested Bush's plans knew the difference between liberation and colonial piracy and assumed that the Iraqi people would have even less trouble determining the difference.
It looks like the Left was right once again.
The invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with any stated reason given for it. All of those reasons -- Saddam possessed a large biochemical arsenal, Saddam would soon build nuclear weapons, Saddam was allied with al Qaida -- were debunked long ago. To be accurate, they were debunked even before the start of the invasion.
However, there was a naive belief that Bush would bring democracy to Iraq. Bush, who sits in the White House in spite of losing the last election. Bush, who calls the police state-enabling Patriot Act necessary and whose allies in Congress fight tooth and nail to maintain its most egregious features. Bush, who by executive decree establishes a network of off shore gulags were men are held incommunicado without charge and tortured. Bush is hostile to democracy both at home at abroad. The idea that he would bring democracy to Iraq or anywhere else is simply absurd.
The invasion of Iraq was not about making Americans safer from terrorists and it was not about bringing democracy to anybody. It was about seizing a sovereign nation's natural resources and its national assets and putting them in the hands of western transnational corporations like Halliburton and Shell Oil. It is, simply put, imperialism. Imperialism, like slavery, is something based on the idea that some men have the right to rule over others and to take from them something of value. That is the antithesis of democracy.
For years, the Iraqi people have been faced with a number of ugly choices. Democracy has never been an immediate choice; it is not now. However, sovereignty is a first step on the road to democracy and that is something al-Sadr and his followers offer the Iraqi people that Bush and Dr. Allawi do not. The first step toward a democratic Iraq is expelling the neoconservative imperialists from the land of the Iraqi people.
A tyrant, said Plato in
The Republic, is one for whom nothing is so sacred that he will not destroy it in an attempt to satisfy his insatiable lusts. At this moment, to satisfy his lust for power and wealth, Bush's forces are attacking and smoke is rising from a structure that is sacred to millions around the world.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
