Common Thread
U.S. foreign policy, despite the Obama Happy Face put on it, exhibits certain common characteristics between the various nations we have been “liberating “as they say in the vernacular.
Rampant corruption seems to be one of the highlights of a U.S. liberation. Looking at Afghanistan Jason Ditz points out the following.
Link
Corruption in Afghanistan has been a growing problem since the 2001 US invasion, and the society virtually runs on bribery and graft at this point. But Helmand villagers tell stories of police rounding up small boys and taking them to police camps to be raped, and robbing elderly villagers’ homes at gunpoint.
The key words here are “since the US invasion.” The Afghans live in fear of the Afghan police who are allied with U.S. forces. The police had been driven out by the Taliban but with the coming of U.S. forces the Afghan police will likely return and continue with their dubious pastimes or that’s how the local Afghans see it and they aren’t happy with the prospect.
Transparency International has a list of the ten most corrupt nations on the planet. At the top of the list is Somalia, you recall Somalia of course since we paid to have it invaded and sent in our own death squads to clean up afterwards, don’t want any witnesses to our liberation practices you know. Afghanistan comes in fifth place on the list after Haiti (a story by itself) with Iraq coming down the home stretch as the third most corrupt nation. Notice the thread that ties all these together which is U.S. interventions. “Interventions” is such a nice clinical word don’t you think? It includes rape, murder, robbery, torture, and any number of other monstrous items. Personally I would never, ever want to be liberated.
The soul grinding misery U.S. interventions have caused is hard for me to imagine, in fact I don’t believe I could. Iraq was invaded twice as well as being subjected to brutal sanctions that killed just as surely as any bullet. The UN/U.S. intervention in Somalia in 1992 allowed the warlords to seize control of Somalia and then we backed the Ethiopian invasion leading to ever more death and human despair. Afghanistan is still an open book albeit one that will not end with the proverbial “And they lived happily ever after.” Not for Afghanistan and not for the United States.
posted by Unknown @ 6:18 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
It's almost getting to the point where if you want to know what the US Fed Govt is doing, you only have to ask it -- and then when you get its answer, you assume the truth is the exact opposite.
Iraq ---> spreading democracy ===) destroying democracy
Charles,
Exactly.
They speak lovingly of democracy yet when the Palestinians voted the wrong way look at what happened to them.
Rob,
If there's puzzling to be done on these misadventures abroad, I tend to do the puzzling on the question of what resources do American businessmen want in that foreign land?
It would appear that most of the regions where there have been American Military Misadventures abroad, there were natural resources at the crux of the "war" or "supporting democracy" actions.
WW2 had nothing to do with freedom or democracy or any crap like that. It was an economic growth design. Look at the Wall Street mucketymucks who played both sides of the war! There were no deep principles of democracy involved. It was about money & power, nothing more.
Somalia = oil
Afghanistan = oil pipeline location; poppies for heroin trade
Iran = oil
Iraq = oil
There's always exploitation at the bottom of these skirmishes. Always. And the locals whose resources we're aiming to exploit, they never get a humane result for their own domestic societies.
All one has to do to understand how this crap works is read the Iraq Study Group Report, and pay close attention to Recommendations 63 and 64.
And then read John Perkins to see how the financiers are invested in the actions.
Links re the ISG Report.
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Study_Group_Report
Report itself (.pdf file): http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_report/report/1206/
Note that continuing your theme and my comments theme, Rob, the entity which compiled the ISG Report is called the Iraq Study Group but the irony is that the Group was "facilitated by" the United States Institute for Peace.
How are they promoting Peace by killing over a million innocent Iraqis and displacing millions more?
Hey, that's a good question!
Charles,
Following the money is a good rule of thumb and as Mike Whitney has pointed out that the past eight years has seen record amounts of money shift from the so-called middle classes and working class to the top one percent of the wealthy. That the current wars facilitate this there is no question in my mind. Also I believe there is little doubt that the terror wars are really oil wars.
I recall at the beginning of the Iraq occupation U.S. troops secured the oil fields first even while the Iraq museum was being plundered of priceless artifacts from the very beginning of civilization. I felt at the time that that alone spoke volumes regarding why we were there.
For those of us who have been paying attention to global games played by the US Fed Govt for decades, the agenda in Iraq was obvious.
We've watched as the US Govt has befriended and empowered Saddam Hussein, then called him an enemy, then befriended him again, and then finally called him an enemy.
The 1991 "border skirmish" actually was payback for Hussein telling George Shultz that Bechtel could NOT have a contract to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure.
OOPS.
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