.
Democracy in
Iraq? Bush does not want it; it won't happen!
A guerrilla war was planned all along in Iraq against the U.S. and
will continue for decades. It will come home to Americans as well.
Craig B Hulet
Democracy in Iraq? While it is on decline in America?
And it is supposed to be America, which institutionalizes it in Iraq? If
they achieve anything in Iraq, we know they will "call it"
democracy even if it "is not," just as we in America continue
to mouth "but we’re free."
08/01/03: This analyst argues from a premise that what
we are told is going on in foreign and domestic policies are not
necessarily what is, in reality, going on. That all governments lie; all
leaders, at one time or another, must, in their opinion and for
politically sensitive reasons they are not willing to demonstrate, must
lie. It seems rather odd that this needs to be repeated; since the early
1960s we as a people have witnessed each President and too many crooks
within each administration, finding themselves caught in some major
scandal, some political act which they of necessity kept quiet on, and
so they lied and were caught. (Since Water-Gate each now has the generic
equivalent and are called "Something-Gate") All governments
lie and most get caught at it. We do not have to quote Lincoln to know
why they get caught.
President Bush continues to claim American troops are liberators, not
occupiers. But the only people who can decide this truth is the Iraqi
people, not one American can make this distinction; not one journalist;
not one talk-show host can make the claim one way or the other. The
prospect for democracy rests with how this issue is seen and understood
by the people of Iraq, not Mr. Bush. The prospect for democracy rests
with liberty first, as the means to establish democracy. Democracy is a
process of developing a relationship between the governed and the
governors. There are many democracies; not all of them are free. Without
true liberty democracy is a false dream, or worse, an illusion lived
under. An illusion fought against.
President Bush thinks he can establish democracy by appointment, as he
has done in Afghanistan; where the guerrilla fighting goes on, where
Harmid Karzai controls nothing of the country and only barely Kabul
because US owned DynCorp’s 3,000 mercenaries protect him. Al Qiada has
returned along with Usamah bin Laden to Eastern Afghanistan, The Taliban
are back as strong as ever, but this is not reported in the American
press. I stated during November [15], 2001, that the "Taliban
withdrawal was strategy, not a rout," as Bush claimed. That,
"an examination of the Taliban withdrawal suggests the group has
intentionally surrendered territory in the interest of adopting tactics
more amenable to its strength." That is to say guerrilla tactics as
used for centuries against all their enemies inclusive of the Soviets.
(Source; The Hydra of Carnage: An Analysis of the Objectives and
Delusions of Empire, 2002 Page 198) The very same is true in Iraq, we
captured few Republican Guard troops, killed even fewer; so where are
these thousands of troops, as well as thousands more which made up,
then, Saddam's supposedly 500,000 man army, which is now, a well-orchestrted
guerrilla army?
There are many handicaps to establishing democracy in Iraq. First the
country must be rebuilt, literally from ashes. This takes enormous sums
of money. The Oil for Food efforts under UN sanction certainly cannot do
this. The new U.N. Resolution 1483 creating the Development Fund for
Iraq will not do this. Even if the US multinational monopoly oil
companies extract the oil, nobody is going to buy it as it stands today
and for a very long time. (See previous article by this author:
"Protecting American Oil Interests in Iraq." July, 28, 2003
Information Clearing House) There will be little resources from the sale
of oil for some time. Why this a problem was pointed out in a recent
discussion group forum of the elite Council on Foreign Relations. One of
the participants pointed out this unsavory "Oil" fact:
"One example of such a handicap is the question of legal title to
anything that you might want to export from Iraq -- oil for instance.
Because buyers and shippers will have real issues buying a product to
which somebody else might assert legal claim. And this is something that
I think people have to be very, very conscious of. Why these are issues
of international law, and not really sort of periphery concerns but the
fundamental ones." (Shashi Tharoor, Under-Secretary-General for
Communications and Public Information, United Nations, April 23, 2003)
Bush thinks he has resolved this issue by protectiing
"American" oil monopolies with Executive Order 13303: Bush
signed executive order 13303 and we were told it was simply implementing
Resolution 1483, but in reality, it went much further towards attracting
investment and minimizing risk for U.S. corporations operating in Iraq.
Executive Order 13303 states categorically that "any
attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other
judicial process is prohibited, and shall be deemed null and
void," with respect to the Development Fund for Iraq and
"all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests
therein." ("Protecting American Oil Interests in
Iraq." By Craig B Hulet, July 28, 2003 Information Clearing
House and KC&A Press Release)
But this too will not wash in the international legal community. It
will be challenged, though Mr. Bush may just repress the Iraqi
opposition further as his only real response; he certainly is not going
to allow the Iraqi people to exert ownership of their oil over
Exxon/Mobil! Bush has to keep this pretty hushed-up in the media as
well. Only makes sense, Mr. Bush cannot allow that specter to raise its
ugly head in our U.S. media, so the obedient state-run private media of
America will comply. But the fact remains.
Mr. Bush and the humbled masses in America believe that winning the war
"is" ipso facto winning the peace. That this has always and
everywhere been unfounded in history is ignored in the main stream media
also. The people of Iraq are as capable of democratizing their land as
any. Bush’s and Rumsfeld’s argument that those of us who do not
believe there will be democracy in Iraq, were asserting that Muslims, or
Arabs, or Persians or any Middle Easterners are "incapable" of
democracy is false; this is sophistry. Bush and Rumsfeld sought to
denigrate the holders of such views by degrading the argument to that
despicable level. That is not why this analyst believes democracy will
not come to Iraq. And I am in good company here even if the reader of
this piece does not know who that company is. I shall name one below who
was also a participant in the discussion group cited above:
"I think we really have to recognize the extent to which we could
do in war what we will not be able to do in the process of
reestablishing Iraq as a viable country. And for that process we will
need to work with the civilian side of the government, with the UN, and
with our European partners in a way that we found unnecessary in the
war. (George E. Rupp, President, International Rescue Committee. April
23, 2003)
There you have it: What we can do in war we cannot necessarily
accomplish for peace. And the first premise is twofold, 1) the Iraqi
people are becoming quite informed as to what we, the United States that
is, wants in Iraq: absolute control, a permanent military presence, a
puppet regime, and their oil, water and infrastructure under U.S.
control. Revenue to accomplish these illiberal destinies shall come from
oil revenues. Whose oil? (See above); and 2) there is no liberty in
Iraq, we are occupiers not liberators in the opinion of now almost all
Iraqis, and most Americans, and without liberty there can be no true
democracy. A guerrilla war was planned all along in Iraq against the
U.S. and will continue for decades. It will come home to Americans as
well, as "that" is what 9/11 really was -- international urban
guerrilla warfare, not classical terrorism. And
all-roads-did-not-lead-to-bin Laden!
Now there can be an illiberal democracy (a euphemism created by
academics to describe democracies which are only democracies in name and
not in substance), i.e. elections are frauds or deceptions, dissent is
censored, civil liberties (traced in history to the U.S. and French
revolutionary writings) not guaranteed, true free enterprise eliminated
where government grants monopoly status over the industries and the
commodities that matter. (Shoe repair and a local diner remain untouched
though less and less competitive as monopolies continue to raze the free
enterprise sanctuaries just as they do here at home in the cradle of
free enterprise.) To put this in better perspective, one author
responsible for coining the phrase stated it this way,
"...50 percent do better on political liberties than
on civil ones. In other words, half of the "democratizing"
countries in the world today are illiberal democracies ... Around the
world, democratically elected regimes are routinely ignoring limits on
their power and depriving citizens of basic freedoms. From Peru to the
Philippines, we see the rise of a disturbing phenomenon: illiberal
democracy. It has been difficult to recognize because for the last
century in the West, democracy -- free and fair elections -- has gone
hand in hand with constitutional liberalism -- the rule of law and basic
human rights. But in the rest of the world, these two concepts are
coming apart. Democracy without constitutional liberalism is producing
centralized regimes, the erosion of liberty, ethnic competition,
conflict, and war. The international community and the United States
must end their obsession with balloting and promote the gradual
liberalization of societies."
(Rise of illiberal democracy, Fareed Zakaria, Foreign Affairs, November/
December 1997)
What little liberty is left here in America is eroding before our eyes
under The Patriot Act I and II, under the new electronic surveillance
organs enlarging daily around us, the rule of law is eroding rapidly.
The U.S. regime is centralized like never before under Homeland
Security. The CIA and the Pentagon ready to operate domestically right
now and they have been authorized to do so. Probable cause is a sad and
noble concept, now lost. Conflict here at home, wars abroad. The utter
lack of dissent allowed in even the most local of media outlets, TV,
Radio and the printed mediums; one is regularly and viciously attacked
for questioning the President’s motives; the term treason launched
against the most moderate of critics. (Treason being a legal term
applicable only to its "actual act" in time of war [declared]
becomes a term used by the ignorant to silence someone they cannot
possibly understand semantically; i.e. they are verbicidal.) Mobs were
organized by the media outlets to confront anti-war protestors in
support of "the troops." Some of us know that 99.9 percent of
those that protested the anti-war protestors have never voted, never
gave a thought for the troops over the decades (Agent Orange victims,
Gulf War illnesses, VFW Hall’s rejection of Vietnam Vets because
"they lost the war," etc.); this was true throughout the past
and it remains a lie now.
What many were, and remain really about still, is their personal bigotry
and hatred of "liberals." A catchall term those on the
far-Right use for anyone they dislike the views of. These folks are
lacking any understanding that Jefferson and Paine were classical
liberals and America was a liberal free Republic based on liberal
democratic ideals. But these same bigots are, in the main, bigots
because they do not or cannot read. It is these that make-up the mundane
masses which will believe democracy has come to Iraq; truth is they will
not even care if democracy comes to Iraq. These are the same ones that
believe the war is over and we won. So, they are back watching ESPN--
ALL DAY LONG! So, democracy in Iraq? While it is on decline in America?
And it is supposed to be America, which institutionalizes it in Iraq by
appointment? At the point of a gun? Achieve anything in Iraq? We know
they will "call it" democracy even if it "is not,"
just as we in America continue to mouth "but we’re free."
________________________________________
By Mr. Craig B Hulet; Security, Military Affairs & International
Relations Expert. Hulet was Special Assistant to Congressman Jack
Metcalf (Ret.) (Author: The Hydra of Carnage: Bush’s Imperial
War-making and the Rule of Law: An Analysis of the Objectives and
Delusions of Empire, 2002 The Artful Nuance Press) His new book can
be found at ww.kcandassociates.org
Mr. Hulet can be reached for speaking engagements at cali@localaccess.com
Copyright 2003 The Artful Nuance and Craig B Hulet
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