In the World`s Eyes the US has become Amerika
US casualties (dead and wounded) have now reached
27,000 in a war that was supposed to be a "cakewalk"
over in a few weeks. If what four-star general Wesley
Clark, former
supreme commander of NATO,
told Amy Goodman in a
March 2 interview is correct, US casualties are yet
in their early days.
Gen. Clark told Amy Goodman that shortly after 9/11
he was shown a Pentagon "memo that describes how
we`re going to take out seven countries in five years,
starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya,
Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran."
That sounds exactly like the plan that
neoconservative Norman Podhoretz set out in
Commentary magazine.
The media have done a good job for the government of
keeping the blood and gore out of the living room.
Except for close friends or relatives of one of the
27,000, Americans have not been impacted by the war.
They are even less aware of the consequences for
Iraqis.
Every day 100 or more Iraqi civilians are killed and
100 or more are maimed and injured. For example on
Tuesday, March 6, the US lost 10 GIs killed. Iraqi
casualties totaled 535, 152 killed and 383 wounded.
US troops routinely kill Iraqi civilians mistakenly
or from frustration, but the heavy daily casualties are
the result of the civil war made possible by the US
overthrow of the Iraqi government. US troops per se are
not responsible for much of the daily toll, but the Bush
administration, Congress, and the American people are.
The March 6 toll of 535 casualties is high even for
Iraq. Assume 200 casualties each day and the result is
73,000 Iraqi casualties per year. Why does anyone in
the Bush administration, Congress, or among the public
believe that the US has the right to wreck a country
and be responsible for such extraordinary harm inflicted
on a civilian population?
How did the "war on terror" become a war on
the Iraqi people?
We have heard every answer: intelligence mistakes,
incompetence, and evil machination. Whichever answer we
take, the killing and destruction continue.
Why?
It has recently come to light that the US government
has imposed an oil deal on the puppet Iraqi government
that turns Iraqi oil over to US and British firms for
exploitation. Bush-Cheney have not brought Iraqis
democracy, but they have stolen their oil revenues.
The profits of the military-industrial complex are
soaring, and higher military budgets are being
appropriated. The value of Cheney`s Halliburton stock
options has not merely doubled or tripled but multiplied
by a factor of 32.
The Israel Lobby sees the war as enhancing Israeli
hegemony in the Middle East and making possible the
completion of Israel`s theft of Palestine from
Palestinians.
Thus, the three most powerful lobbies in America are
the beneficiaries of the devastation of Iraq. The
combined power of these lobbies makes it impossible for
Congress to respond to the American people and end the
war.
American politicians and administrations still cloak
their motives in idealistic principles, but it has been
a long time since anyone has seen any principled
behavior in Washington.
Despite the unrelenting US propaganda against Iran
and North Korea, a poll of 28,000 people in 27 countries
for the BBC World Service (March 6) found that Israel,
Iran, and the US in that order are regarded as the most
negative influences on the world. Even North Korea is
regarded as a less negative influence than America.
Japan, Canada, the EU, France, China, and India are
all regarded as more positive influences on the world
than the United States.
The Bush Cheney-Regime has achieved this deplorable
result in a mere 6 years.
Yet the Democrats cannot even pass a toothless
resolution against committing more US troops in Iraq.
Far from making Americans safe by attacking a country
that posed no threat to the US, Bush-Cheney have alarmed
the Russians and the Chinese. Russian President Vladimir
Putin and General Yury Baluyevsky, Chief of the Russian
General Staff, have both warned that the Bush regime`s
military aggression and drive for hegemony are setting
off another arms race. General Baluyevsky says that
Russia might pull out of the 20-year-old Intermediate
Nuclear Forces Treaty.
China has announced a 17.8 percent increase in its
military budget for 2007.
China is
America`s most important banker. How long will China
fund America`s wars and trade deficit when it finds
itself so threatened by America`s "leaders" that
it has to accelerate its military spending?
Americans still regard themselves as the salt of the
earth. But the rest of the world no longer sees
Americans that way. When citizens of other countries
turn their eyes toward America, they see evil.
COPYRIGHT
CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Paul Craig Roberts
[email
him] was Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration.
He is the author of
Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider`s Account of
Policymaking in Washington;
Alienation
and the Soviet Economy and
Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy,
and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of
The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and
Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name
of Justice. Click
here for Peter
Brimelow`s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts
about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.
