Chaos Accomplished

[XXPANTHAXX]

Chaos Accomplished

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
March 20, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/33768/

In a speech at George Washington University, Bush touted the "remarkable
progress" made by the United States:
In less than three years, the Iraqi people have gone from living under
the boot of a brutal tyrant, to liberation, to sovereignty, to free
elections, to a constitutional referendum, and last December, to
elections for a fully constitutional government.

Yet, a snapshot of Iraq today reveals a country that is miles from
anything recognizable as a "road to progress."

At the end of last year, Iraqis had 11 percent less electricity and 36
percent less potable water than before the 2003 invasion. The number of
Iraqis with sewer access has fallen by 90 percent, and oil output is
down by more than 20 percent. A poll in mid-2004 found that seven out of
10 Iraqis see the U.S. as "occupiers," not "liberators." A more recent
survey (PDF) showed that almost half of all Iraqis support armed attacks
on U.S. troops. And this weekend, former Iraqi interim Prime Minister
Iyad Allawi told the BBC that Iraq was smack in the middle of a civil
war.

That is the essential truth of what we have wrought in Iraq.

Last week 200 more bodies were found in and around Baghdad, dumped in
bunches. Many of the corpses had their hands tied behind their backs and
had been killed by a single bullet to the head. The New York Times
reported "widespread suspicion" that "most were victims of Shiite death
squads who went on a quiet but steady killing spree after a bomb attack
on a Shiite market in Baghdad one week ago."

The political process that the war's supporters tout is at an impasse.
December's elections were essentially an ethnic or sectarian census of
Iraq's population; Iraqis voted for lists of anonymous candidates from
their own "tribe." Names of candidates were withheld for their own
protection.

Four months after those elections, the ministers have failed to form a
government. Despite the efforts of U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad --
who appears to be an unusually competent appointee for this
administration -- the factions remain deadlocked.

Last week, members of Iraq's Parliament finally sat down to negotiate
after months of wrangling over the issue of federalism. The issue has
been a deal-breaker so far; Shiites and Kurds want powerful regional
governments, while the Sunnis who make up the heart of the insurgency
fear that such an arrangement would cut them off from the lucre of
Iraq's vast oil deposits. The meeting lasted just half an hour,
adjourning after the ministers argued bitterly over the wording of the
government's new loyalty oath.

According to a report by the International Crisis Group (PDF), power is
concentrated in the hands of parties that have militias. "With no
central apparatus that can rely on its own non-partisan security forces
to stand in the way of parties and militias holding ethnic, sectarian
and even separatist agendas, the most likely outcome is the gradual
erosion or perhaps disintegration of the state," the report said.

In the face of these ugly developments, there's been a significant shift
in rhetoric from the administration and its dwindling ranks of
supporters. The hawks are trying to distance themselves from the
consequences of the war they championed. The continuing violence and
disarray we can expect in the coming years will be the Iraqis' fault,
not a result of American hubris.

We no longer hear the "Pottery Barn" maxim famously uttered by former
Secretary of State Colin Powell: "You break it, you buy it." After the
bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, which set off a wave of back
and forth sectarian violence, President Bush suggested that while
continuing United States military support is crucial, Iraqis must take
the lead in forming a unified state.

While we reject the Pottery Barn theory as a justification for keeping
U.S. troops in Iraq, dodging our responsibility for the tragedy being
lived by Iraq's civilians every day is cowardly and wrong. Sectarian
tensions certainly simmered under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein,
but the low-level, irregular civil war plaguing Iraq today is a conflict
largely of our making. If one were to sit down and consciously map out
how best to ignite such a conflict, one would be hard-pressed to do a
better job than the Bush administration has done.

It wasn't just the neoconservatives' dismissal of the State Department's
exhaustive post-war planning, nor the rejection of top army officials'
estimates of the number of troops needed to establish stability after
the invasion. The so-called political process itself was always based on
American domestic politics rather than sound nation-building.

After the administration's original justifications for the war were
proven false, the emphasis shifted to the rhetoric of "democratization."
From that point, the building of an Iraqi state was shaped by Karl
Rove's political apparatus and not the experience learned in other
post-conflict situations. A power-sharing government -- in which
different groups are guaranteed certain offices and ministries -- was
rejected, despite the fact that such arrangements have been used
following intra-state conflicts from Cambodia to Mozambique. Worse yet,
the administration insisted on an overarching program of
"de-Ba'athification," which left many mid-level Sunni officials
unemployed and humiliated -- and still armed to the teeth.

What is harder to quantify is the degree to which incompetence, graft
and cronyism has contributed to support for Iraqi insurgents. While the
administration's backers speak of the great progress being made in
reconstructing a war-torn country, the Pentagon's own Inspector-general
warns (PDF) that, with nearly all of the $30 billion allocated already
spent, there remains a dramatic "reconstruction gap."

That's the reality 35 months after the president stood before a banner
reading "Mission Accomplished" and thanked "all of the citizens of Iraq
who welcomed our troops and joined in the liberation of their own
country."

For three long and disastrous years, the administration has continued to
put that sunny spin on the havoc it has wrought. As long as that
obstinate state of denial persists, we have little reason to hope for
anything better before we face the war's fourth anniversary.

Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.

2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/33768/

[CreatorsCollege]

In their upside-down "Lies are Truth" this is progress towards THEIR agenda.

Reality is defined by those with the power to enforce it. We who exist in TRUTH dwell in the only REAL-ity that IS.

Some have eyes and can't see, and they are the NWO's audience. Their reality has been defined in such a way that any alternative to the current world-order is too freightening and disempowering for them to trust or contemplate.

As far as they have been brainwashed, a non-european controlled world means the death and destruction of them, and the Cosmic joke is that they are doing it to themselves.