THE RECORD
April 23, 2003

Fiat Lux

by Ed Deak

If there's one thing the unelected Bush junta has achieved with their Iraqi adventure, it is the creation of bottomless hate against everything American in all corners of the globe. When one reads the papers not under the control of Western media barons like Rupert Murdoch, Izzy Asper, or Conrad Black, particularly from Asia and Africa, one can not help wondering where all this will all lead to on the long run? Will ordinary, innocent Americans be assaulted, or killed in all parts of the world because of the irresponsible actions of their government?

There is already a worldwide boycott brewing against anything American, like Coke and MacDonald's I hope it won't get worse, but desperate people often do illogical, criminal actions to get back on their torturers. Palestine is the prime example and no retaliations and terror campaigns could stop it.

It is a pretty silly thing to talk about a great victory in this, one more undeclared war against yet another miserable country. No country in history has ever won a war. For one thing, it is not countries who are warring against each other, but kings and governments bent on conquests and robbery against other kings and governments, dragging their unfortunate subjects along on their way to self destruction. It is not in wars where the armies of conquerors are victorious, but in temporary battles, until they run out of steam and self destruct by the consequences of their irresponsible actions.

Empires are not crushed by their enemies, but by the stupidity of their leaders. It has always been and always will be so. There's no escape from this simple fact.

War is the ultimate economic competition and all competitive systems must sooner or later wear and break down. No competitive system, or individual can survive indefinitely. All empires go that one fatal step too far and then collapse through the inefficiency of the ever increasing energy inputs required to maintain their position. The examples are there in all history books, yet some so called leaders never learn the lessons of a hundred dead empires and count on some ridiculous divine intervention on their behalf to expand and maintain their power indefinitely. It has never worked and never will.

Here is an example of what is being written about the Iraqi war in newspapers in Asia, Africa, South America and even in the independent papers in Britain and Europe. This one is from India's national newspaper The Hindu, by Rajeev Dhavan on the conquest and planned colonization of Iraq. With hundreds of years under colonial rule these people can not be fooled to believe a word of the claimed "liberation."

USING NAPOLEON as a mouthpiece, George Bernard Shaw makes a telling comment on British Imperialism, which is no less - if not more - apposite to the American imperialism of our time. He says: "There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find an Englishman doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles; he bullies you on manly principles; he supports his king on loyal principles and cuts off his king's head on republican principles.

America is no different. It claims to act in terms of international law; but feels free to subvert international norms whenever it wants. It supports the authority of the United Nations but turns its back on the UN to suit its convenience. It globalises trade in the name of fairness; and most unfairly usurps the major trade benefits to its own advantage. It launches a war to secure the largest oil reserves in the world but pretends it fights for peace. It claims to act in the name of democracy, but leaves behind battered states wherever it has gone. It fights a war for peace, but makes huge profits by the sale of arms that follows. Its peacekeeping results in war. Its war brings no peace. No sooner are its interests maintained, it leaves behind a debris of enfeebled states. It is never at a loss for an effective moral attitude.

The situation in Iraq is developing into the same pattern as it has in Afghanistan, where the Taliban may have been routed at the cost of thousands of civilian lives already and many more in the years coming from the depleted Uranium ammunition and the hundreds of unexploded cluster bombs spread all over the county. Apart from a few showpiece locations women are still enslaved, the warlords, who were once kicked out with American help and the Taliban installed are now back and worse than the Taliban. The puppet government has to be guarded by American DynaCor mercenaries as the locals can not be trusted. The soldiers of the conquering armies can not leave their bases for fear of being killed etc.

Now DynaCor has the contract to guard the new Iraqi puppet government most likely headed by the favourite of the victors, the "convicted embezzler" Ahmed Chalabi, whose job will be to dismantle and sell off the infrastructure of the country before any legally elected government can take over. The American Heritage Fund, the Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute and other ultra right wing think tanks are demanding the complete privatization of the country, including health and education to show the world the wonders of competitive free enterprise.
Meanwhile the Shia Moslems , who make up 69 percent of the population are arming themselves and getting ready for a civil war to take control and establish and Islamic Republic, similar to Iran's, while the US is massing troops and equipment on the Syrian border. It is interesting that the so called victors had no troops to guard 32 Ministries, hotels, banks, foreign embassies, museums, and schools from looting and burning but had lots to look after the Ministry of Interior and the Oil Ministry.

Copyright (c) 2003, West's International