Escobar on “the shift”
Not his words, mine. A suicide bombing in the Parliamentary cafeteria of the Green Zone means, basically, the most secure perimeter in Iraq was penetrated. That is a shift. Quantum.
The United States military, oxidized by four years of occupation, has crossed the event horizon for a tactical defeat in Iraq, more humiliating perhaps than Vietnam. Every day this continues is washing the hands of the United States Congress in blood.
Here is Escobar’s description from inside Iraq:
Apr 14, 2007
THE ROVING EYE
The Baghdad gulag
By Pepe EscobarDAMASCUS – There are three overlapping wars in Iraq: the Sunni Arab guerrilla struggle against the US; strands of Sunni Arab guerrillas against assorted Shi’ite militias/death squads; and al-Qaeda in Iraq against the puppet, US-backed Iraqi government in the Green Zone. Make it four wars: the Sunni Arab guerrilla war against the government inside the Green Zone. Better yet, make it five wars: the Sadrists, from Sadr City to Kufa and Najaf, against the Americans.
All strands of these five overlapping wars will never allow the United States – or Anglo-American Big Oil – to control Iraq’s oil wealth. Even if the new oil law is ratified by Parliament before June, implementation will be a certified nightmare, and security for billions of dollars of necessary investment non-existent.
Strands of these five overlapping wars also will never accept the long-term imposition of vast US… FULL
eoinmonkey:
When were the first US ‘advisors’ sent to Vietnam? About 1960/62? And the US more or less pulled out in 1973. Thats 13-odd years hanging on to a mistake. Is this situation similar, or worse, because leaving (and leaving all the oil) isnt even an option? Do we have another 13 years of this debacle, watching Iraqis die by the thousand, or will it last the rest of everyones lives this time?
13 April 2007, 4:48 pmmarlow:
George Bush has lost the war he chose to start. He lost it years ago. What we are seeing now is the spectacle of a leader who cannot admit his defeat and withdraw. If W had been the Japanese premier in WWII he would have allowed a hundred nuclear bombs to fall, he would have allowed the entire nation to be decimated and would have made every child fight to the death. If he were the French prime minister he would have ignored Dienbienphu and continued to send troops into a useless slaughter. W’s progenitor is Hitler, who literally forced Germany to undergo complete destruction rather than face reality. In short, we’re screwed.
13 April 2007, 8:13 pmeoinmonkey:
I think you might be overstating the case there a little. Bush is starting to dither (not quite enough to leave) because 3000 Americans have lost their lives. It seems that the current strategy (currently getting the shit kicked out of it with this Green Zone bombing) is to retreat somewhere safe and ignore the heaps of dead Iraqis- and what is more, it seems like that would be OK with the American public. Just like Vietnam, this war is considered tragic because of the loss of US life, and bugger the brown people who are really doing the dying. Im not meaning to sound callous about those lost US lives, merely to point out the monumental callousness being displayed towards non-US life by this administration and the majority of this country. Thats hardly Hitler or Tojo, who were perfectly prepared to wash away their nations problems with the blood of their own young men (and the blood of plenty of lesser nations too).
14 April 2007, 10:58 amEmpty rhetoric doesnt really help the situation, I think.
Phil:
This is a fascinating article, but Escobar still buys into the fiction of “Al Queda in Iraq.” The myth of Al Zarquawi, the alleged demised leader of this fake outfit, has been demolished in various press outlets, most effectively by Ralph Schoenman (www.takingaim.info). Whenever one reads “Al Queda,” one should substitute “CIA”. When we read about mass slaughter of civilians in Iraq, think of 1970s-80s Salvadoran death squads and 1960s-70s Operation Phoenix in Vietnam and you can understand what’s going on.
17 April 2007, 9:21 amBob:
re “overstating the case”
I don’t know exactly when the US first officially sent ‘military advisors’ to Vietnam. But they had spooks and military aid in there much earlier, at least as early as the end of WWII.
As for Dienbienphu, think about it. France was in no position to maintain their empire after WWII. Their post-war Vietnam debacle was largely financed and equipped by the US. After Dienbienphu France wised up, or at least gave up. The US did not. Not for thirteen years, but closer to thirty. Nor did they ever really wise up: they were just kicked out. No oil, just the spectre of commie-nism.
And those were, as they said, The Best And Brightest, sons of the American Golden Age. They said that ironically, of course. But since then we’ve had a second banana to a monkey, the second banana’s second banana, some Arkansas trailer trash, and now the monkey himself. When you’ve arrived at the monkey, there’s not much that can be said ironically. You’re screwed.
So it’s hardly possible to ‘overstate the case’.
Discalimer: It may be unfair to compare Hitler to the monkey — after all, Hitler not only read books, he wrote one, and a bestseller too! And it’s probably unfair to put too much blame on the monkey — brutality, duplicity, murder, these seem to go with the office. And, after all, he’s just a monkey.
And of course, it’s grossly unfair to real monkeys to use them as a facile metaphor. To simians, my contrite apology.
STAN: As someone who hails from Slick Willy’s home town, and whose lived in a trailer himself a coupla times… uh, a bit of history. Trailer trash, also “white trash”, is a term that came to denote white folk who “are no better than n*****” in the vernacular. Ergo, the term “trash.” Think of the implications, even though in this case with your intent seemed to be not racism, but a class put-down.
18 April 2007, 11:11 pmBob:
Stan, right, poor choice of words. I don’t live in a trailer, but my mom does, my brother did, and my house is four ramshackle rooms propped up on jack posts. No class put-down intended, just some glib shorthand for a particularly sleazy sort of character. My bad.
19 April 2007, 12:56 pmHenry:
China’s Pipelineistan “War”
Anteing Up, Betting, and Bluffing in the New Great Game
By Pepe Escobar
Future historians may well agree that the twenty-first century Silk Road first opened for business on December 14, 2009. That was the day a crucial stretch of pipeline officially went into operation linking the fabulously energy-rich state of Turkmenistan (via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) to Xinjiang Province in China’s far west. Hyperbole did not deter the spectacularly named Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Turkmenistan’s president, from bragging, “This project has not only commercial or economic value. It is also political. China, through its wise and farsighted policy, has become one of the key guarantors of global security.”
More:
http://bit.ly/c9EyzO
13 October 2010, 4:44 pm