How to End the War by Naomi Klein (5/5/05)

[pstans]

This article is permanently archived at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2103/

This article was written after the National teach-in on Iraq that was held in March. Bu$h said that these people hate us for who we are. That is a total crock of sh*t. They hate us for what we do.

Here are the parts of the article that I found most insteresting.

"When I was in Iraq a year ago trying to answer that question, one of the most effective ways I found to do that was to follow the bulldozers and construction machinery. I was in Iraq to research the so-called reconstruction. And what struck me most was the absence of reconstruction machinery, of cranes and bulldozers, in downtown Baghdad. I expected to see reconstruction all over the place.

I saw bulldozers in military bases. I saw bulldozers in the Green Zone, where a huge amount of construction was going on, building up Bechtel’s headquarters and getting the new U.S. embassy ready. There was also a ton of construction going on at all of the U.S. military bases. But, on the streets of Baghdad, the former ministry buildings are absolutely untouched. They hadn’t even cleared away the rubble, let alone started the reconstruction process.

The one crane I saw in the streets of Baghdad was hoisting an advertising billboard. One of the surreal things about Baghdad is that the old city lies in ruins, yet there are these shiny new billboards advertising the glories of the global economy. And the message is: “Everything you were before isn’t worth rebuilding.” We’re going to import a brand-new country. It is the Iraq version of the “Extreme Makeover.”

Basically, Iraq has been turned into a laboratory for the radical free-market policies that the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute dream about in Washington, D.C., but are only able to impose in relative slow motion here at home."

[whistle]

1. This too.....

<snip>
If we want to know what the goals of the war are, we have to look at what Paul Bremer did when he first arrived in Iraq. He laid off 500,000 people, 400,000 of whom were soldiers. And he shredded Iraq’s constitution and wrote a series of economic laws that the The Economist described as “the wish list of foreign investors.”

Basically, Iraq has been turned into a laboratory for the radical free-market policies that the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute dream about in Washington, D.C., but are only able to impose in relative slow motion here at home.

So we just have to examine the Bush administration’s policies and actions. We don’t have to wield secret documents or massive conspiracy theories. We have to look at the fact that they built enduring military bases and didn’t rebuild the country. Their very first act was to protect the oil ministry leaving the the rest of the country to burn—to which Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld responded: “Stuff happens.” Theirs was an almost apocalyptic glee in allowing Iraq to burn. They let the country be erased, leaving a blank slate that they could rebuild in their image. This was the goal of the war.

<end>

That sounds a lot like colonization to me.

[omega minimo]

3. Eradication of the "cradle of civilization"

on purpose?

[omega minimo]

2. Extreme Rakeover

Thank you for posting this.

The surreal imagery Naomi Klein raises-- the foreseeable results of the socio/economic policies at work in the U.S. for decades. This county has been raked over as well. "Relative slow motion" serves to blind people to the social consequences at home. They scratch their heads about Columbine and road rage. The perpetrators raise the banner of Culture War after sucking the lifeblood from the culture and creating a nation of paranoid zombies. Eyes too glazed over to wonder "Where the hell did all that reconstruction money go?"

Maybe they'll have some Total Quality Management seminars to help the Iraqis through the process.


"One of the surreal things about Baghdad is that the old city lies in ruins, yet there are these shiny new billboards advertising the glories of the global economy. And the message is: “Everything you were before isn’t worth rebuilding.” We’re going to import a brand-new country. It is the Iraq version of the “Extreme Makeover.”"

[pstans]

4. I also heaed on AAR

That the US is requiring Iraqi farmers to buy seeds from Monsanto instead of using seeds from the previous planting season. They make them through out the seeds they already have and make the farmers buy them from the US company.