It seems frightening that we are wasting billions of

dollars and thousands of lives– Iraqi and American–

pretending that we are fighting the Mahdi Army or

alQaeda when in fact we are using soldiers to fight

criminal gangs turning on each other, not militias.

These forces disrupt the very Iraq we occupy and fail

to protect while causing a lot of “collateral damage.”

Worse still, we are failing to develop an Iraqi police

force adequate to bring law and order in a nation that

had it until we weakened it since 1991 and destroyed

totally in 2003, promoting US then Iraqi gangster

economics by failing to promote law and order. Our

army does the only thing it knows how to do: make

soldiers. By promoting an army that is 50% greater

than Saddam’s army at his strongest point, the US is

using the Iraqi Army against Iraqis. So what Crocker

and Petraeus didn’t tell us is that we are, in effect,

creating another banana republic where the military

fights the people.

Daniel E. Teodoru

We now know what Israeli turn-over of Gaza and

American democratization of Baghdad mean: pour

concrete on them all and when it dries shoot from the

air whatever still moves.

Gareth Porter– my personal nemesis supporting Hanoi

back in the Vietnam War days– has proven to be one of

the most astute analysts of the Iraq situation in Wash

DC (perhaps I should reconsider Vietnam too). In a

recent analysis he reads Maliki’s attack on Basra as a

last minute attempt to preempt an American assault on

the city, pre-planned since last June as part of the

surge. Porter is spot-on, as oil companies execs will

testify.

To ease the high cost of gasoline suffered by

Americans before he leave office Bush wants to at

least secure the Basra fields, where 80% of Iraq’s

known oil reserves are located, and the port of exit,

Basra City. He believes that cheap oil will make the

Iraq War worth it to Americans and all his

incompetence and indecisiveness would be forgiven. It

should be remembered that the first priority of the

Iraq invasion of 2003 was not to allow Saddam to, in

defeat, set fire to the oil wells as he had done in

Kuwait. So, while in 2003 every building and person in

Baghdad was pillaged, plundered and molested by roving

gangs, American soldiers stood by watching– a crime

by international law, for safety and order are the

responsibility of the occupying power– the oil fields

were safe and sound.

With oil now at twice the price back when Bush sought

to make Iraq America’s own oil gusher, Bush would like

to leave office with “mission [partially]

accomplished” at least: Basra safe for imperial

plunder by Western oil companies so that Iraq’s oil

can drown OPEC’s quotas.

PM Maliki is still resisting the oil privatization

law– allowing Western investment in and domination of

the oil fields– that the US tried to shove down his

throat. Maliki knows well that if the US seizes Basra,

who masters the fields becomes moot. To date, with the

British having abandoned the imperial program early,

the oil has been flowing through the hands of

everything from religious militias to criminal gangs

on to the global black market. For five years now, so

fearful of the explosive insecurity, American oil

giants have shied away from commitment to seizing

Iraq’s oil. In that sense, one can say that the

insurgency has– so far– been successful.

But suddenly, after Hunt made a totally illegal deal

with the Kurds, bypassing the Iraqi government, for

the smaller fields in the North of Iraq, Maliki,

having denounced and rejected the deal, noted that

American oil companies were lining up to sign on for

the Basra fields in the South. So, to head off Bush’s

plans for Basra oil, Maliki moved to seize Basra first

and forced the US to provide logistic and air support

by placing before Petraeus a fait accompli. To deny

support would violate Iraq’s sovereignty and Malki

could demand that the US leave immediately. Already he

faced down the US last year claiming that if the US

stops supporting him he can find other friends

elsewhere. First the British complied and then

Petraeus had no choice.

But there is a further absurdity in all this. PM

Maiki– who came to power thanks to Sadr’s political

support– has now focused his forces on Sadr’s Mahdi

Militia, insisting that they disarm and disband and

that Sadr himself abandon all political aspirations.

To mount his offensive, Maliki aligned with Hakim’s

Iran run and created Badr forces for the Basra

offensive. The Iran created ISCI that Hakim heads

wants to make a separate autonomous federal unit of

Iraq’s nine Southern provinces, where 80% of the

proven oil reserves lie. So, using the Iran-proxy for

troops, the Brits and US for air support and

logistics, Maliki hoped to destroy the Shi’ite Sadr

Tendency Movement before the US does.

Unlike Hakim, Sadr is an Iraqi nationalist who does

not allow the similar Shia confessional bond with Iran

to eclipse the fact that Iraqis are Arabs, not

Persians. He sought a Shia-Sunni Iraqi alliance to

expel the US with ceremonial thank yous for removing

Saddam and bands playing all the way to the door: it’s

time to go home, Yankee!

Maliki is also an Iraqi nationalist who does not want

Iranian domination. But he realizes that, just as Bush

is on his way out of the White House, the US is on its

way out of Iraq. He must, therefore, come up with a

counter-force to the Sunni neighboring states that

have been feeding the insurgency all along (Saudis

provided suicide volunteers and technology while

Kuwait provided the money and Gulf states serve as

bankers with transferred Saddam’s billions for the

insurgency). Maliki’s solution was a temporary

alliance with ISCI (whose Badr forces were killing

Iraqis for Iran during the 1980s Iran-Iraq War). By

working with this creature of Tehran– whom Bush

Administration schemers saw as the best ally in order

to stop Iranian involvement in the war– Maliki felt

confident that Iran would support his regime while he

brings the Sunnis in line after the Americans leave.

Prior to the invasion, Hakim was in on all the CIA

guided and funded exiles’ councils in London of the

Iraqi National Council, led by Ahmed Chalabi, another

proven Iranian spy. Back then it didn’t matter because

Bush was planning a one-two regime change two-step:

Iraq–>Iran. But with no regime change possible in

Iran to date, Bush had to grumble and watch helpless

while all Shia factions maneuvered for Iranian

backing.

All this is clever by half. As Americans, given our

original oily motives, let us ask ourselves what does

it cost in blood, time and money to kill one insurgent

and how many must we kill in order to secure the oil

fields for ourselves?

Making the multiplication, the price seems almost as

great as the technological revolution that would make

the US independent of Mideast oil. Yet, we rather copy

the storm trooper tactics which the Israelis in turn

copied from the English, Germans, Soviets and South

Africans in order to suppress any objection to our

imperial designs on Iraqi oil; we are thus losing

irreplaceable *VOLUNTEER* soldiers (none of the neocon

chicken-hawks are stepping up to replace them!) and

creating orphans and widows just because we can’t

admit that we were defeated by our own military’s

criminal incompetence. How much top-down

low-brain-powered arrogance will it take before

America realizes that it has been morally, globally

and economically exsanguinated?

The Arab survivors of our war crimes, as the Israelis

learned the hard way, will for generation afterward

never forget and never forgive. In that sense (and

also given that we invited use of airliners as suicide

guided missiles by leaving ALL pilot’s cabin doors

wide open) we are at fault for 9/11 by providing

generations of victims of our violent oil grabs reason

to hate us and want to kill us as they kill themselves

in revenge for generations to come. On might say that

Reverend Wright– who served his country as a Marine,

unlike Bill Clinton who evaded the Draft and

demonstrated against America in Moscow Square– might

have a point: avarice and hubris make us our own worst

enemy.

Daniel E. Teodoru

First this confirms in my mind that we should leave Iraq, come what may.

Coincidentally, a companion piece to this interview, which I recommend if you have not listened is Bill Moyers’ amazing one with Leila Fadel of McClatchy. Moyers gives us the opportunity on his web site to watch or listen:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04182008/watch.html

Long live people who do good work….. Thank you Chris.

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Liberal-America-Alexander-Cockburn/dp/1844671305/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208593446&sr=1-2