Shotgun Wedding: The Saint, the Insurgent and the Surge's "Success"
Sunday, 11 November 2007
by Chris Floyd
Although 2007 will have seen the largest number of American military deaths in Iraq and the passing of the one million mark in Iraqi civilians killed, there has been much triumphant harrumphing of late about a slight drop in the horrific death count in Iraq — proof, we are told, for the umpteenth time, that the war of aggression has finally "turned the corner" (i.e., the conquered people have finally been beaten into submission).
To the extent that there has been any lessening of the ongoing slaughter for a short period, much of that can be put down to a factor little discussed in the American media-political bubble (at least not in terms of stark reality): the fact that the White House and St. Gen. David Petraeus have simply legitimized what used to be recorded as terrorist acitivity by paying the former killers of Americans to kill and repress other Iraqis. Thus, in some areas of Baghdad now controlled by American-paid, American-armed Sunni extremist militias, executions, mass killings, horrific torture, kidnapping and rampant extortion still go on — but these are no longer counted as "insurgent violence." These horrors are now regarded as legitimate police actions by "concerned citizens" groups — almost all of them former close allies of the most savage sectarian bands (now loosely called "al Qaeda" by everyone, regardless of any actual relationship, however tenuous, to the gang of one-time CIA ally Osama bin Laden).
In other words, Bush and St. David are now giving American taxpayer money — and copious amounts of arms, equipment and flash vehicles — to those responsible for some of the most sickening assaults on innocent life since Bush destroyed Iraqi society and plunged it into sectarian warfare, which the Administration has encouraged and exacerbated at every step.
This is one way of keeping the American death count down: you just turn over various walled enclaves in Baghdad to a band of thugs in your pay, lard them with guns and money, then get the hell out of Dodge, letting the thugs do what they will.
It is absolutely vital for the Washington warmongers to keep the American death count low. As long as "only" two or three Americans are being killed every day or so, they can keep a lid on the rising but still very manageable popular discontent with the war back home. The increased use of airpower — blunderbuss assaults on civilian areas with bombs and attack helicopters — also helps toward this goal. And, as noted, it also helps lower the official numbers on "terrorist" violence, following the age-old tradition of U.S. foreign policy: if somebody is killing, raping and torturing with our money, in our name, why then, it can't be terrorism. It's just a grassroots initiative to restore law and order, and bring freedom to benighted peoples.
The American policy also borrows directly from the methods adopted by Vladimir Putin in Chechnya. After directing a savage and unrelenting assault on the Chechen people — complete with widespread torture, collective punishment, kidnappings and murder — Putin then bought off some of the most brutal figures in the opposition and installed them in power. Given this example, it would not be surprising if the "strongman" who eventually emerges to take over Iraq — in the name of some sort of "national emergency council" ruling by decree and supported, implicitly or openly, by the United States — comes not from the old circle of Western-backed exiles nor from the Iranian-backed parties that Bush has empowered in the present government, but from one of the street-level gangs now being built up by the Americans.
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http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/2808/81/
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