EU Draws a Line in the Sand

By Lloyd Hart

Now that the European Union has drawn a line in the sand by bringing the exiled word "Central" back to center stage in a vote on Thursday April 17th. 2003 that demands that the U.N. play the "Central" role in rebuilding Iraq, bringing Iraq to a constitutional democracy, the U.S. now has only one choice if it wants to convince anyone other than the censored Americans that the main goal of the U.S. invasion of Iraq was actually about Liberation, now that WMDs have been brushed aside by the Pentagon and not about Oil. That choice being, of course, an orderly withdrawal of all U.S. and British forces from Iraq as a very large Multinational U.N. Peacekeeping Force moves in with all the UN agencies supported by the world's NGOs and takes over what has turned out to be the terrible incompetence of the U.S. military's inability to deal with the complexities of civil society. The obvious theory encapsulated in the EU vote is the political cover it gives politicians throughout the world (but mostly in Europe) they can point to for reasons not to trust the U.S. in any future arm breaking, I mean arm twisting/negotiations in and outside the UN. If the U.S. does not allow the U.N. to take the central role in Iraq, the Bush regime is a big fat liar up in neon lights powered by European windmills. If European and World politicians can say that the U.S. lied about Iraq, European and world media will cover those statements as well as the continued out-of-control truth going down in Iraq as you read this and thus the rest of the world will be better prepared to deal U.S. imperialism and its brainwashed soldiers no matter where they go next. And as the Boy Scouts say "Be prepared".

The U.S. response to the EU vote was predictable, simply reiterating that the U.N. would play a vital but limited role in Iraq. With the awarding of a civil engineering contract in Iraq to Bechtel Corp. who just got finished ripping off the American taxpayers by committing massive fraud, I mean, mismanaging the extras billing on the 18, I mean, 14 billion dollar Big Swig, I mean, the Big dig Central Artery Project in Boston Massachusetts and who will now have to hand some of the ill gotten, I mean, profits back in the end and who really needs a serious bail out. And upon whose board many luminaries sit from the cabal of conservative elites that aided in the theft of the election 2000 such as the George Schultz, the former US Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan who when questioned yesterday on CNN's Moneyline by Lou Dobbs about his and his company's fraternal ties to the present Bush regime, stated "Somebody has to do the work". It seems the conspiracy to steal I mean privatize Iraq's oil is moving ahead at breakneck speed while the Bush regime distracts the American public with a possible expansion of the war on terror into Syria. Boy, with friends like the Bush regime in the White House who needs an open bidding process in order to spend public funds.

Everyone except those Americans that have decided to remain censored knows for certain that this invasion of Iraq was about the oil and now that they have the oil, it's going to be very interesting to watch the U.S. attempt to hold on to it. The U.S. seems to be following the formula they used in Afghanistan. Find a corrupt member of the largest ethnic majority group or in the case of Iraq, the ethno-religious majority of the Shiite and install that person in power, in this case one Mr. Chalabi to do U.S. bidding. This being the pattern the U.S. in its incredible ability to completely screw up feels is the working combo to get the oil flowing from Iraq through U.S. Oil companies. But, does anyone out there really think that the U.S. will truly be able to survive the Shiite majority once it picks a leader and coalesces into a single organism of hate toward the invading infidel. And coalesce they will especially if the Kurds get to control Kirkuk and the surrounding oil fields in northern Iraq. Because Shiite will want control of the southern Iraqi oilfields U.S. soldiers will now have to turn their guns on the so-called liberated Shiite population. And then of course there are the Sunnis who are going to stand there in Baghdad and say to the U.S. "We told you so". Add to this mess the U.S. shooting of protesters exhibiting their liberated right to protest against the imposition by the U.S. occupier of a governor of Mosul in northern Iraq. It can safely be said as the U.S. military abandons Mosul's city hall after provoking the population of Mosul with the Kent State style over reaction to civil protest by the pissing in their pants 18 year-old boys and girls from dirt-poor America, that the U.S. military couldn't organize a civil society out of wet paper bag.

At the beginning of this week the Bush regime with its multimillion-dollar P.R. machine that has its hand round the throat of all U.S. corporate media outlets including that of NPR (not that it took much strangling) began turning its sights on Syria making wild accusations that the reason there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is because they were transferred to Syria and that all of the top Iraqi brass under Saddam Hussein were hiding out there, using the terror ties to Hezbahla and Islamic Jihad as well as the tactic they used to sell the invasion of Iraq, conservative good cop, bad cop. The Bush regime being bad cop and former Secretary of State Eagleburger under the former President Bush regime playing good cop by stating Monday night on MSNBC that he "would support the impeachment of George W. Bush if the U.S. went into Syria" stealing the word impeachment from those actually now calling for it. In the case of selling the invasion of Iraq, representative Dick Armey, General Schwarzkopf and members of the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon played good cop while the Bush regime overwhelmed the American public with back and forth shuffleboard advancements of all the reasons to invade Iraq to facilitate regime change i.e. war on terror, weapons of mass destruction and finally and perfectly timed with the actual invasion, the liberation of the Iraqi people giving the troupe's something to tell themselves while they obediently commit genocide in Iraq. And of course by the time the invasion was for certain to occur all conservative naysayers had pronounced that they had been convinced by the Bush regime's case to go to war and were in support if it in the end. This tactic steals the language, the fire and all the media time from the truly committed left wing critics of the Bush regime that are truly opposed ideologically and just plain logically to America being and seen as it always has been and been seen outside the U.S., as the imperialist conqueror it is. Because of the corporate media and their conservative imperialist bias any real democratic debate in America has almost completely vanished from the air waves. The most grotesque result of the conservative good cop bad cop strategy is that the liberal elites let it happen and even went along with it just as they did with election 2000 allowing the Democratic Party to completely polarize and implode into what now looks like a bunch of vote junkies strung out from chasing the swing vote of the so-called Reagan Democrats.

It was however nice to see Medea Benjamin of  http://globalexchange.org and  http://www.codepink4peace.org appear briefly on Moneyline with Lou Dobbs reiterating the position that the U.N. should have the central role in rebuilding Iraq after what is essentially an illegal invasion and a violation of international law. But I wouldn't trust CNN's plans for Medea Benjamin as far as I could throw them. After all she has dedicated her life to increase the wages and improve the life styles of the working poor in the so-called developing nations and we all know that the loan shark thugs on Wall Street that invest in World Bank loans definitely want to keep labor and life cheap in those so-called developing nations. But the Wall Street boys that love Lou Dobbs might be getting worried about cross pond economics with the Europeans lining up behind the U.N. which if the U.S. insists on holding on to the oil in Iraq could lead to a trade war and of course the worst-case scenario U.N. imposed economic sanctions against the United States. The main bargaining chip at this point though, is the lifting of U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq which would allow the Bush regime to have the perception of legality of its "I did it my way" occupation and rebuilding of Iraq. Which is why the Bush regime's first request from the world body is the lifting of those sanctions. But with the European Union demanding that the UN takeover the rebuilding of Iraq it looks as though the U.S. may be forced to the negotiating table while U.S. soldiers asses are left hanging out in the wind subject to the growing hostility building in Iraq against the U.S. colonial occupation.

If you don't believe me read Robert Fisk's latest report from Baghdad supplied by Znet at Zmag as well as the collection of articles my pals at united for peace just put out.

Economic Sanctions Against the U.S.

 http://adbusters.org

Dead and Wounded Iraqi Civilians

 http://dadapop.com

Robert Fisk's latest report:Anti-Colonial War
 http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=3474

Talking Points: After the Fall of Saddam

By Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies
 http://www.ips-dc.org/iraq/talkingpoints.htm

Why the Anti-War Movement Was Right
By Arianna Huffington, April 16, 2003
 http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/files/041603.html

What We Do Now; A Peace Agenda
By David Cortright in The Nation, April 21, 2003
 http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030421&s=cortright&c=1

Response to the above article by Phyllis Bennis and John Cavanagh of the Institute for Policy Studies
 http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030421&s=bennis

Response to the above article by Bill Fletcher Jr. of United for Peace and Justice and TransAfrica Forum
 http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030421&s=fletcher

Response to the above article by Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange and CodePink
 http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030421&s=benjamin

In peace and solidarity,
Andrea Buffa
Leslie Cagan
Bill Fletcher Jr.
for United for Peace and Justice
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