Shocked and awed into 'freedom'

[bemildred]

Sort of odd, on the one hand the occupation controls everything,
and yet on the other hand it controls nothing.

Two years after being shocked and awed into "freedom", freedom on the ground is a meaningless concept for large swathes of the Iraqi population. Sunnis and Shi'ites alike tell Asia Times Online of a brutalization of every-day life.

Highways in and out of Baghdad are suicidal: the Americans can't control any of them. Anyone is a potential kidnapping target, either for the Sunni guerrilla or criminal gangs. Officials at the Oil and Electricity Ministries tell of at least one attack a day. Oil pipelines are attacked and distribution interrupted virtually every week. There's a prison camp syndrome: almost 10,000 Iraqis incarcerated at any one time, in three large jails, including the infamous Abu Ghraib. There's also an Abu Ghraib syndrome: all-round denunciation of torture, electroshocks and beatings. The Americans and the Iraqi police proceed with the same "round up the usual suspects" tactic: but even if the "suspects" are not part of the resistance, their families are always well taken care of, so they inevitably join the resistance actively when they leave jail.

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Bremer's CPA imposed myriad laws over Iyad Allawi's transitional government. Washington controls almost every excruciating detail of Iraq's economy: that's how the "new" Iraqi administration was conceived by the neo-conservatives. The Ministry of Energy is in effect American-controlled. American-paid officials control all the key administrative positions in each relevant Iraqi ministry. Their mandate lasts for five years. Gung-ho privatization has not even started in full - and it will make a mockery of all the warnings included in the TI report.

Hakim says that the Iraqi population wants a full American troop pullout, and no American "permanent military bases". He may be right, but it won't happen. A Sunni Baghdad businessman was savvy enough to note, "We all know the Americans are building 14 military bases all over the country. And we all know they won't leave them. Does that sound like freedom to you?"

Asia Times

[Jack Rabbit]

1. No. it doesn't sound like freedom me

A Sunni Baghdad businessman was savvy enough to note, "We all know the Americans are building 14 military bases all over the country. And we all know they won't leave them. Does that sound like freedom to you?"

It sounds like colonialism.