EUROPEAN SYNERGIES – MARCH 2004
Dear Friends,
The best voices against Bush’ world policy come from America. Except some
brilliant exceptions, the critical voices in Europe and elsewhere are not
political but moralistic and therefore unefficient and sterile. Second remark :
the silly Pro-American dummies of the so-called “right” or “conservative” or
even “national-conservative” ideological area should better take inspiration in
the works of Northern American conservative columnists than to imitate the
disgusting Bushite warmongers. The editorials of Eric Margolis are pieces
of anthology for what should be thought here in Europe. In the text hereunder
and in red letters, what should be urgently thought about
Chers amis,
Les meilleures voix qui s’opposent à la politique internationale de Bush
viennent d’Amérique. Mises à part quelques notables exceptions, les voix
critiques en Europe et ailleurs ne sont pas de teneur politique mais sont
moralisantes et, par voie de conséquence, inefficaces et stériles. Deuxième
remarques : les profonds imbéciles qui restent philo-américains dans le camp idéologique
de la “droite”, du “conservatisme” ou du “national-conservatisme” feraient bien
mieux de chercher de l’inspiration dans les travaux des éditorialistes
conservateurs nord-américains, plutôt que d’imiter leséc?urants fauteurs de
guerre bushistes. Les éditoriaux d’Eric Margolis sont des morceaux d’anthologie
qui devraient servir de modèle en Europe, pour indiquer ce qu’il faudrait
penser. Dans le texte qui suit, en rouge, les passages qu’il conviendrait de méditer
d’urgence.
http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_mar14.html
March 14, 2004
Bush's war is a financial
disaster
The U.S. won an inevitable military triumph, but political victory remains
elusive
By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor
WASHINGTON -- The famous words of King Pyrrhus of Epirus after the bloody
battle of Heraclea in 280 BC are as appropriate for America's conquest of Iraq:
"One more such victory and we are ruined."
The March, 2003 invasion of Iraq pitted the world's greatest military power
against the largely inoperative army of a small, dilapidated nation of only 17
million (deducting rebellious Kurds), crushed by 12 years of sanctions and
bombing.
Thanks to total air superiority, invading U.S. forces achieved a brilliant feat
of logistics, racing from Kuwait to Northern Iraq in under three weeks. The 15%
of Iraq's army that stood and fought was pulverized by massive, co-ordinated
U.S. air strikes and artillery barrages. Urban resistance failed to
materialize.
The rout of Iraq's forces recalled another colonial war, the Dervish Campaign
of 1898. Gen. Kitchener led the imperial British Army far up the Nile into
Sudan where it met and massacred a primitive Islamic host at Omdurman.
Britain's quick-fire guns and artillery mowed down Dervish cavalry and
sword-waving "fuzzy-wuzzies" as murderously as U.S. precision
munitions vapourized Iraqi units.
U.S. air and ground forces in Iraq displayed superb technical, electronic,
logistic and combat prowess confirming they are two full military generations
ahead of nearly all other nations.
But as the great modern military thinker, Maj.-Gen
J.F.C. Fuller, observed 40 years ago, the proper objective of war is not
military victory but a politically advantageous peace. While the U.S. won an
inevitable military victory against a nearly helpless Iraq, political victory
so far remains elusive.
Primary objectives
In my view, two primary objectives drove the U.S.
invasion of Iraq: oil and its support for Israel.
White
House claims about weapons of mass destruction and
terrorism were propaganda smoke screens.
President
George Bush's claims that impotent Iraq posed "a grave and gathering
danger" to the U.S., Condoleezza Rice's hysterical warnings about
"mushroom clouds over the U.S.," and Vice President Dick Cheney's
bizarre jeremiads about "Iraq's reconstituted nuclear weapons" were
absurd.
The U.S. now controls Iraq, a strategic nation with the Mideast's second
largest oil reserves.
The CIA estimates China's and India's surging, oil-hungry economies will cause
world oil shortages by 2030 - or sooner.
Accordingly, the Bush administration moved to assure America's global hegemony
by seizing Mideast and Central Asian oil before the impending crisis. Doing so
required occupying Iraq and Afghanistan.
The U.S. imports little oil from the Mideast or Central
Asia. However, these regions are primary oil sources for Europe and Japan -
and, increasingly, for India and China.
By dominating these oil sources, the U.S. controls the economies of its main
commercial and potential military rivals. Control of the Muslim world's oil is
the principal pillar of America's world power.
The Pentagon plans three permanent major military bases in Iraq from which
powerful garrisons of U.S. air and ground forces, backed by mercenary native
troops, will police not just Iraq but the entire Mideast and guard the new
"imperial lifeline" of pipelines exporting oil from Central Asia and
the Arab world.
Other U.S. bases in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan, linked to
bases in Bulgaria and Romania, will guard the new imperial route.
The second objective, in my view, was aiding Israel.
Influential American supporters of Israel's rightist prime minister, Ariel
Sharon, played a significant role in building the case for war against Iraq.
>From various positions in the White House, Pentagon, National Security
Council, media, and taxpayer-supported Washington think tanks, these
neo-conservatives helped to orchestrate the campaign about Iraq's non-existent
weapons of mass destruction and trumpeted alleged threats from Iraq.
Mini-states
The neo-cons achieved their objective: Iraq, once the Arab world's most
developed, industrialized nation, a bitter foe of Israel, was destroyed, and
will likely end up split into three weak mini-states.
Israel is a primary beneficiary of the Iraq war: a potential nuclear rival was
eliminated by the U.S.
Many neo-cons believed crushing Iraq would help to cement Israel's grip on the
occupied West Bank and Golan, thwart a Palestinian state and force the Arab
nations to accept Israel's regional hegemony.
But for the United States, Iraq was at best a pyrrhic victory. Invading and
occupying Iraq has proven to be a financial disaster. The invasion cost $105
billion US in direct expenses - the price of five complete carrier battle
groups, or one million low-cost apartments.
Occupying Iraq costs $9 billion monthly.
Pre-war neo-con plans to finance the occupation by plundering Iraq's oil have
been frustrated by sabotage. Congress estimates the overall cost of
"pacifying" and "rebuilding" Iraq for fiscal 2003 and 2004
at a staggering $200 billion.
This money will have to be borrowed by the empty treasury, which, thanks to
Bush's reckless "war" spending, is running huge deficits heading
toward $400 billion, risking an explosion of inflation that threatens to
undermine the long-term bond market and further weaken the dollar.
The human cost of the war continues to rise. As of this writing, U.S. losses
amount to 555 dead, and about 9,000 casualties from combat, accidents and
serious illnesses.
Ten thousand Iraqi civilians were estimated to have been killed by U.S. forces
- in a war now described as waged under "mistaken intelligence
assumptions."
Iraqi military casualties are 6,000-10,000.
Iraq lies in ruins. "Rebuilding Iraq" means paying for all the damage
caused by massive U.S. bombing and years of sanctions.
Puppet regime
In spite of rosy claims from the White House about handing sovereignty to
Iraqis, American troops will garrison Iraq for years to guard the oil fields
and maintain a "democratic" puppet regime in power in Baghdad that
obeys Washington's orders.
U.S. forces will continue to face a simmering, low-grade guerrilla war that
will kill or wound more American troops, and increasingly brutalize and corrupt
occupation forces - the inevitable result of all colonial wars. In short,
America now has its own West Bank, or Lebanon.
The brazen arrogance and profound ignorance shown by the Bush administration in
its crusade against Iraq has turned the world against the United States.
Occupied Iraq is acting as a terrorism generator. For the next generation of
young Muslims, Iraq is becoming what Afghanistan was in the 1980s, a rallying
point to fight foreign occupation, battle imperialism and defend the tattered
honour of the Muslim world. Bush and his men have created millions of new
enemies.
Half of all U.S. ground combat forces are tied down in and around
Iraq. Reserves
are being mobilized for long tours. Wear and tear on overstretched U.S. forces
and their heavy equipment is a grave, though little discussed, problem.
Neo-con promises of "liberation" of Iraq, of joyous,
flower-tossing crowds and of rapid "democratization" have turned to
dust. Iraq remains a dangerous, volatile mess seething with violence and
implacable Shia political demands. Twenty resistance groups now battle U.S. and allied
occupation troops. Militant Islamic jihadis are heading for Iraq to fight
"Great Satan" America. Yet Bush still claims invading Iraq made
America safer.
However, because of Iraq, much of the world now regards America itself as a
menacing, unstable threat.
President Bush has stuck his head into a hornet's nest. The U.S. will bleed
men, money and reputation for a long time before it figures out how to get out
of the first colonial misadventure of the 21st century.
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Eric
can be reached by e-mail at margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@tor.sunpub.com or visit his home
page.
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