Another plastic Turkey moment.
Wipe away the celebration spittle. The capture of Saddam Hussein, like so much surrounding this fantasy war, will produce more questions than it answers. Just as the U.S. administration worked the PR machine when the war 'officially ended' now the capture of Hussein will also prove to be just another plastic Turkey moment. Another moment that does not really matter.
Hussein, for a start, was not 'directing operations' covered in shit in a tiny cellar with hardly any clothes and a wonky beard. But then anyone on the ground could have told you that. That claim was also PR. Also the idea that the operations and attacks against the U.S. military were in any way worrying to the Pentagon is also a ludicrous claim. No one, and we mean no one, cares about dead U.S. Grunts. Nor the wounded or traumatised. Least of all the men who sent them there.
The attacks against U.S. armed forces were always just a minor irritation to this U.S. administration's long game, the securitisation of world energy resources for the benefit of the USA. Whilst the hysterical, headline seeking mass media, trumpeted the deaths of US soldiers one by one they consummately fail to add them up. The invasion of a country of 28m people has cost less than 700 troops, in total, from every country, with every cause of death. Suicide, car accidents, food poisoning, falling from buildings. It's been a doddle, a cakewalk, just as they said it would be.
But now they have become trapped by their own game. Whilst the death of each soldier was recorded it made it seem like it mattered. Of course it did not as we have said, but the PR game was to make it seem like the USA was involved in a proper war. Not the invasion of a resource rich country for the "capitalist dream" (The Economist), which was the forced handover of state industries to U.S. companies and the privatisation (or looting, whichever you prefer) of state oil assets and supply chains. By making out that they were involved in a proper war with real hardened enemies the U.S. administration have created a monster of their own.
Because what happens now? What happens if Iraq continues along the way it is now? Because surely it must. Surely this has to have been a long term aim of the U.S. administration. Social decay, crime and hopelessness are markers by which U.S. based societies function. They are the cornerstones of U.S. political triumph. To allow Iraq to regain any of its former wealth, to allow its population to organise, to allow any freedoms beyond the great monetarist freedom "the freedom to starve" (Alfred Sherman) will never happen.
Iraq, like the Soviet Union, has to be returned to its rightful place, the third world. In doing this the population will never be able to act in any way that is independent of U.S. power. Certainly they will never be able to create societies that can then create governmental systems that can act on their own.
So, Saddam ("he was beaten by his father teaching him the power of violence," BBC News 24) will eventually be killed, by tribunals set up last week. These tribunals have the power of the death penalty although they have no basis in legality. US appointed Iraqis, like the embezzler Chalabi still wanted for extradition to Jordan, will kill Saddam. Their tribunals have no basis under any previous or current system. But as GW Bush said last week "oh, international law, well, let me call my lawyer." He then laughed.
So, then what? Will the attacks stop? It is doubtful. From all the reports coming out of Iraq those who thought Saddam would return to power are few, those who would fight to see him re-instated are even fewer. But there are many many people who regard the U.S. as invaders. Nationalists, ethnic separatists, communists, religious fundamentalists, the Kurds and more. If even 1% of the population would either actively participate in armed violence or be accessories to it that is 280,000 people the U.S. are going to have to kill or lock up. That is not going to happen either. And 1% is what they call a conservative estimate.
So we are going to see a country called Iraq, returned to the sand from which it was built. We shall see the country propped up by crime warlords, drugs and embezzlers like the other U.S. allies in the region. The majority of whom have oil to find and heroin to sell. After all that is another marker of U.S. societies, appointing the right people involved in the drug trade to power. We shall see the religious right rise and we shall see secularism, tolerance and compassion go out of the window. Just have a look at Afghanistan, or for that matter Haiti, the Philippines, Indonesia or Colombia. The empire of pimps.
But the big problem for this U.S. administration is that it is obvious what is going on. The Achilles heel of the Bush2 government is that they are too honest, too 'out there'. Doing the 'crazy American' thing, as first marketed by Ronald Reagan. They hate international law, they hate foreigners, they really despise sand niggers (unlike their own niggers they are not frightened of them) and they don't care if you buy and sell smack and opium as long as you do what you are told. In a year or twos time (for they will be re-elected) when they are still bombing little brown children playing in fields, still beating to death brown prisoners in custody, still shooting up brown babies at checkpoints, still getting the odd soldier popped off, still appointing embezzlers and crooks and still starting to plan the invasion of Iran ("Saddam abused this country…he attacked his neighbours" Paul Bremmer) what excuses are they going to make then?
It's the fault of Clinton? Or the permissive society? Arabs don't understand democracy? It's the French? It's Chinese televisions? It's European steel? He was coming straight at us? That the turkey deliberately plasticated itself?
(Adam Porter)
