----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 2:52
PM
Subject: [PEN-L:35768] FW: Iraq War -
Predictions Past and Present
some predictions about the war.
From : Renee Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject : Iraq War - Predictions Past and
Present
Date : Tue, 18 Mar 2003 17:10:18
-0800
To my students: "I told you so."
Back in 1999 after looking at the sanctions program against
Iraq and the
NATO war against Yugoslavia, I made a few
predictions to my students which I
have reiterated
each subsequent year. Those predictions were as follows:
1. The U.S. would invade Iraq.
2. The U.S. would project military power into the
Caspian - Central Asia
region.
3. The European Union would seek to dissociate itself from
U.S. foreign
policy and chart its own course.
Why did I make these predictions and why have they come
true?
Foretelling a U.S. war against Iraq was fairly easy to
do. The explanation
is that the U.S. backed
sanctions program was designed to destroy the
country
economically and militarily; in effect, it was a form of siege
warfare designed to degrade the target (Iraq) making
it much easier to
conquer. Added to the
sanctions program was the imposition of northern and
southern "no-fly" zones which not only effectively denied to the Iraqi
military the airspace over the country's northern and
southern perimeters
but also allowed the U.S. and UK
air forces to bomb northern and southern
Iraq to
pieces on a regular basis. The U.S. thus softened up the invasion
routes for the conquest of Iraq. In short, the
coming war represents a
continuation of the ongoing
war against Iraq. It will be Phase III. Phase
I was Desert Storm - kicking Iraq out of Kuwait.
Not knowing how the Iraqi
Army would perform on its
home soil and not having a suitable replacement
for
Saddam Hussein, the U.S. began Phase II - siege warfare plus bombing to
reduce Iraqi defenses while a replacement could be
found for Hussein. This
low intensity warfare
has finally accomplished its task and now the
"necessary" reasons for invasion have been trotted out to justify the
war
and occupation.
"But why invade Iraq?", the students asked.
Answer: The Baath regime
(which the U.S. helped
come to power in 1963 by assisting its coup against a
previous Iraqi government) no longer served as the compliant vassal of
U.S.
political economic interests in the region.
The Baath's eventual leader,
Saddam Hussein - like
other U.S. protégés before him (Ngo Dinh Diem in Viet
Nam, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Manuel Noreiga in Panama)
developed illusions of autonomy and began to pursue
policies inimical to the
visions of Washington.
In seeking to expand his role as a grand Arab leader
free of U.S. constraints, Hussein "crossed the line". His crimes
which
heretofore had been ignored were given wide
airplay to shift public opinion
against him.
(When he was seen as an agent of U.S. policy, those crimes
were conveniently ignored. One of my favorite pictures on my desk
is the
1983 photo of Ronald Reagan's special Middle
East envoy, Donald Rumsfeld -
yes, that Rumsfeld! -
shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad; soon
thereafter, the U.S. began supplying biochem weapons to Iraq.)
The occupation of Iraq will allow the U.S. to reassert
control of the oil
fields which had been contracted
out to foreign competitors (France, Russia,
and China)
and also to position itself militarily on the western flank of
Iran (the other part of the "axis of evil").
With this move, the U.S. will
have Iran almost
surrounded: American troops are on Iran's eastern flank in
Afghanistan, southern flank with the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf, and
western border in Iraq. With the Iraq "threat"
erased after the removal of
Hussein, watch the White
House and media develop the new "threat": Iran.
This extension of U.S. military might throughout the Middle
East/Persian
Gulf region into Central Asia (the
'stans) is a process that extends back to
the fall of
the old American ally, the Shah of Iran, and the subsequent loss
of Persian oilfields to U.S. control. Since 1980
the U.S. has built up its
airlift and sealift
capabilities in the region and developed new bases to
pre-position itself for war. In 1997 the Army dropped 500
paratroopers into
Kazakhstan to test its airlift
capabilities for war in Central Asia and in
1999 took
Central Asia out of the Pacific Command and put it into the
Central Command which oversees the oil rich Middle East. This put
the
Central Asian countries (which abut the Caspian
Sea and Iran) into the
sphere of plans for Mideast
warfare.
New predictions:
1.The Iraqi oilfields will not be put in the hands of the
Iraqi people; they
will be privatized and awarded to
appropriate corporate investors.
2.The French, Russians, and Chinese will lose their existing
contracts to
develop the Iraqi oilfields and Exxon
Mobil, Chevron Texaco, and British
Petroleum will
become the major players in Iraq. The rebuilding of the
damaged oilfields will go to Vice-President Dick Cheney's old
company,Halliburton.
3. None of the foregoing will constitute "proof" that the war
was for oil
profits. It will simply be
"coincidence".
4. Democracy will NOT come to Iraq. What will happen is
that some very rich
exiled Iraqi who has made it clear
in the past several months to the State
Department and
CIA that he is and will be forever and ever in complete
agreement with what ever the Americans want in Iraq shall become the
new
ruler. He will be labeled by the U.S. press
as a democratic wonder and
indeed may have the
trappings of "elections" (just as Hussein had
"elections"). But the people of Iraq will be no more "free" than the
people
of Kuwait are today (even though we "liberated"
them 12 years ago).
5. Iraq will not be rebuilt into an affluent middle class
nation. Oil
profits will flow to a small upper
class and the mass of people will be
forgotten by the
prowar crowd and the government that waged the war to save
the Iraqi people from Hussein. Eventually the
misery of the Iraqi people
will be blamed on the
Iraqis themselves.
6. The Kurdish problem will not go away because the Turks (the
"allies" Bush
tried to buy for 26 billion dollars)
will not accept a Kurdish nation.
7. Bush will not solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; on
the contrary,
it's not unlikely that the Sharon
government might use this war for some
"population
transfer" under the rationale of fighting terrorism.
8. The U.S. war against Iraq will further the efforts of the
EU, Russia, and
China to develop the political and
military strength to check the U.S. This
will be
a longterm process but they will either do it or become vassals.
Their main fear is not that ExxonMobil gets Iraqi oil
profits but that the
U.S. will have effective military
control over the bulk of their oil
supplies from Saudi
Arabia though Iraq to the new fields of the Caspian.
Such control will give the U.S. unprecedented
leverage over these nations because the U.S. will dominate a region
containing 70% of the world's energy reserves.
9. Watch the White House and the media begin to increase the
demonization of
Iran. Pressure will be put on
Tehran to submit to U.S. demands. If the
leadership in Iran fails to comply with U.S. demands, then America will
be
"forced" to stand up to another threat to world
peace.
That's enough for now.March 18, 2003
------------------------
Jim Devine
[EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
stop the war now!
