Okay, I took a look at the November 20th Obama "Way Forward in Iraq" speech. There's a line at the bottom of page 2 (if you go to the printable version) that ought to seal the deal for any "progressive" who cares about U.S. imperiialism and so isn't content to combine (ala "Dissent" magazine) arguing for national health insurance and/or enhanced union organizing rights and/or an increase in the federal minimum wage with support for the bombing of Lebanon or the U.S. assault on Iraq. Those who doubts that Barockstarr is a vile imperialist ruling-classhole can start by reading the following:
"And it is not enough for the President to tell us that victory in this war is simply a matter of American resolve. The American people have been extraordinarily resolved. They have seen their sons and daughters killed or wounded in the streets of Fallujah."
Please look at this account of U.S. massacres in Fallujah. And this one. And this one. And this. And this. And this. And this. and look at this interresting piece by James Petras, where we read the following interesting reflection on the price paid by U.S. soldiers for being ordered to participate in the massacres of Fallujah:
"Not all of US combat forces experienced the joys of shooting civilians [in Fallujah in 2004, P.S.]. Medical studies report that one out of five returning soldiers are suffering from severe psychological trauma, no doubt from witnessing or participating in the mass killing of civilians. The family of one returned soldier, who recently committed suicide, reported that he constantly referred to his killing of an unarmed child in the streets of Iraq — calling himself a 'murderer'”.
I think we know what we are dealing with when "liberals" constantly discuss the human cost of the war on Iraq as it if its all about injuries and deaths just to U.S. troops, who Obama makes sure in his latest speech to praise for "performing their duties with bravery, with brilliance, and" – get this – "without question." For one early and telling example among many, see a piece I did on Howard Dean in which I found him (in November 2003) saying there were "four hundred people dead who wouldn't be dead if we hadn't gone to war." Four hundred was the U.S. GI Death count at the time; the iraqi death count had run well into the tens of thousands by that time.
At some point in the near future the U.S. body count in Iraq will equal the 9/11 U.S. toll and some liberals somewhere will speak in agonized terms about the terrible irony of it all. As far as I'm concerned the criminal irony kicked in once the number of overseas civilians killed by the U.S. equaled the U.S. 9/11 total. I would imagine that happened in Afghanistan, before Bush received considerable liberal Democratic approval for his decision to use 9/11 as a pretext for undertaking the criminal, racist oil invasion of Iraq – so called Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)…which might have been called "Operation Iraqi Liberation" if the resulting acronym wouldn't have been too embrassingly accurate: OIL. Think about that one as you recall that only the Oil Ministry was protected as the U.S. forces tolerated the "untidy" [as the now officially disgraced Rumbo famously put it] looting of Baghdad.
Take a look at Obama's latest speech and you'll see him refusing to call the Iraq War out as a crime. He sees it (of course) as a "failure of strategy" in the pursuit of generally noble intentions that have been undone by poor implementation, a lack of realistic and pragmatic vision and competence and by waste, fraud and corruption.
Consistent with ruling doctrine and the requirement that public figures speak in terms of fariy tales, Obama takes seriously the notion that OIL (let's just use that acronym on the left from now on, susbtituting it for OIF) was and is about a misguided attempt to "impose democracy" on Iraq and the Middle East. The belief that that's why the Empire went in to Mesopotamia is (to use a phrase that B.O. employs…see the top of p.2) "an ideological fantasy" — and a childish one at that. I've written my two cents on how its about controlling Middle Eastern oil – how could it not be given what we know about the world system and America's role in it? – and how the the last thing the bipartisan America ruling class wishes to see in Iraq is substantive democracy and true national freedom. I'm getting tired of linking so will just do this one here. You can bet your bottom petrodollar that oil is why Obama (who makes such a special point of rejecting what he thinks is the American populace's dangerous shift to "isolationism") advocates the redeployment of U.S. troops to a regional "over-the-horizon force," and says that Uncle Sam must "remain a key player in the region." That region and the world would have much to fear from an Obamanation.
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