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by
Robert Jensen and Rahul Mahajan
September
3, 2003
Now
that American-British lies and distortions about Saddam Hussein's weapons of
mass destruction and al-Qaida links have been thoroughly exposed, Bush
administration officials have had to create new rationalizations for the Iraq
war.
Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
in late July that "military and rehabilitation efforts now under way in
Iraq are an essential part of the war on terror. In fact, the battle to secure
the peace in Iraq is now the central battle in the war on terror."
Last
Tuesday, George W. Bush told the American Legion, "a democratic Iraq in
the heart of the Middle East would be a further defeat for [the terrorist
networks'] ideology of terror."
And
in early August, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice compared the U.S.
mission in Iraq with the civil rights movement: "[W]e must never, ever
indulge in the condescending voices who allege that some people in Africa or in
the Middle East are just not interested in freedom ... or they just aren't
ready for freedom's responsibilities. ... [That] view was wrong in 1963 in
Birmingham, and it is wrong in 2003 in Baghdad." Rice implied that those
opposing the U.S. occupation are the moral equivalent of white supremacists who
thought black Americans incapable of citizenship. To critique the Iraq
occupation is to stand in the schoolhouse door.
The
Bush strategy is clear: If WMD and terrorist links fail as rationalizations for
war, don't worry; let us now praise the liberation of Iraq. It turns out that
all along the invasion was about creating democracy in Iraq so that Americans
will be more secure.
The
brutality of Hussein's regime had long been known, not least to U.S. planners
during the decade the United States supported him through the worst of his
atrocities.
But
liberation rhetoric is designed to divert people from questioning U.S.
intentions. For the sake of discussion, however, let's take Bush's claim at
face value and ask, How serious is the United States about establishing a
meaningful democracy in Iraq? How liberated are Iraqis?
Rebuilding
a country devastated by three wars (the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, the 1991 Gulf
War, and this year's invasion) and 13 years of punishing economic sanctions is
no small task. But, as Wolfowitz has admitted, U.S. planners gave little
thought to those problems. The United States is spending $3.9 billion a month
on military operations but has allocated only $2.5 billion over two years for
reconstruction.
Liberation,
most would assume, also means allowing people to decide their own fate. Yet the
crucial decision to privatize as much of the Iraqi economy as possible has been
effectively made by American officials to be ratified by a handpicked Iraqi
council.
U.S.
officials also have eliminated most import tariffs, which has resulted in a
flood of goods into the country - and hundreds of factory closings and
increased unemployment. Iraqi companies dealing with 13 years of economic
crisis and progressive decay under sanctions can't compete with foreign goods.
One
also might assume basic freedoms are part of liberation. Yet the Coalition
Provisional Authority chief, Paul Bremer, gave himself the power to squelch
Iraqi media engaged in "incitement," which in practice means clamping
down on those who oppose the occupation. Under the headline "Bremer is a
Baathist," one paper editorialized, "We've waited a long time to be
free. Now you want us to be slaves."
Meanwhile,
the U.S. military has fired on crowds of peaceful demonstrators. The worst
instance, which was condemned by Human Rights Watch, was in Falluja in April
when 17 were killed. In a botched raid on a Baghdad house in July, troops fired
on Iraqi civilians in a crowded street and killed up to 11, including two
children. In one night in August, six Iraqi civilians were killed at
unannounced U.S. checkpoints. All of this seems to suggest that, in the minds
of occupation authorities, Iraqi life is cheap.
Most
Iraqis are happy to be free of the regime of Saddam Hussein. But it's
increasingly clear that the well-being of Iraqis was not the reason for regime
change.
Officials
are quick to deny it had anything to do with increasing U.S. military control
over that strategically crucial energy-rich region, or with control of the flow
of oil and oil profits -- even while they acknowledge plans to create permanent
military bases, use their new leverage against other countries in the region,
and privatize Iraq's oil.
We're
supposed to trust them, though all the signs point in the opposite direction. After
all, they haven't led us wrong on Iraq before, have they?
Robert
Jensen, a professor of journalism at the University of
Texas at Austin, is the author of the forthcoming Citizens of the Empire:
The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights Books). He can be reached
at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu. Rahul
Mahajan is the author of Full Spectrum Dominance:
U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond (Seven Stories). He can be reached at rahul@tao.ca.
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