The
Bush men looked out upon the expanses of Iraq and saw the perfect
staging ground for a glorious, global offensive that would lead,
inexorably, to a New American Century. From Kurdistan and the
Shi’ite south the United States would commandeer sufficient oil
to become OPEC, thus thwarting any move to unhitch petroleum
prices from the dollar and sustaining a domestic fossil fuel feast
that might last through a hundred corporate quarterly reports.
Once
the U.S. military and its corporate camp followers were fully
embedded on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the
whole of the Eurasian land mass would be open to American power
projection. Syria would swing wide the gates to Damascus, lest
they be knocked down. Jubilant Iranians would sing Farsi songs
in praise of Coca-Cola over Ayatollahs, while contributing their
crude to the U.S.-controlled mix. Saudi Arabia would crumble from
princely rot, ridding the U.S. of fat royal skimmers of profits
rightfully belonging to people of Aramco.
France,
Germany, Russia, China – every combination of nations – would
accept the Borgian pronouncement: “Resistance is futile!” For
all the world’s peoples but Americans, time would stop, the dimension
itself awaiting final definition by the Centurions.
For
more than a decade the Pirates-in-waiting savored the moment that
U.S. tanks would cross the Rubicon of history at the Kuwaiti border,
the first leg of a short march to global hegemony. In April they
stepped – into space. Like Wile E. Coyote,
they are absolutely incapable of finding their way back.
Blind,
deaf and dumb to history
This
is an occupation unlike any other in modern history. Acting solely
on greed and delusions, the Pirates dismissed the collective experience
of humanity to attempt the occupation of a large and sophisticated
society without a reasonable expectation of collaboration from
any significant segment of the population. It cannot be done,
as confirmed by the daily dispatches from Iraq and beyond.
Absent
some modus vivendi with a social group large enough and
sufficiently well placed to act on the occupier’s behalf, the
foreign power is left with only his blunt instruments. He can
destroy the society, but he cannot make it run along lines that
are to his benefit. He can shoot the civil service and essential
workforce, but he cannot reap the value that he sought from that
nation. He can inflate and restructure his army to perform vital
economic and civil missions while simultaneously protecting itself
against the population – for as long as he is willing to pay the
huge cost. He has won himself a liability that will drain him
of treasure and blood.
Unaided,
the foreigner is also blind and deaf. Not only will he be shot,
but he will not know why or by whom. He cannot control events,
because he cannot anticipate the actions of others. He is lost
and pitiful, clutching his blunt instruments. Lacking societal
intelligence, he is dumb.
During
the buildup to invasion, the Bush men went through the motions
of considering the experiences of American occupation forces in
post-World War II Japan and Germany. However, their useless corporate
think tanks understood nothing. The Emperor of Japan told his
people to cooperate with the Americans, and they did, collaborating
in their own occupation. The surviving German high command accepted
American terms of surrender and, joined by the economic elite
and civil service, cooperated in the enforcement of those terms.
(Under both occupations, huge chunks of the wartime regime were
left in place at the end of hostilities, to later flourish as
part of the post-occupation ruling circles.)
Japanese
troops remained in Vietnam and Korea as armed protectors of the
American occupation, until the French could be reinstated as Vietnam’s
colonial rulers and the Korean collaborators became viable. The
French had maintained dominion over Vietnam from the 1800s by
converting and empowering a collaborative Catholic population
– the group the United States inherited after 1954. When minority
Vietnamese Catholics became spent and were discarded in 1963 –
no longer capable of effective collaboration – the puppet presidency
devolved into a game of military musical chairs. U.S. troop strength
began climbing to the half-million mark.
Faces
in the crowd
The
occupation lessons of the 20th century are totally
lost on George Bush and his deluded Pirate crew. Instead, they
perceived an undifferentiated Iraqi population without classes,
hierarchies, centers of actual influence, defined social structures
– in short, a history-less, inhuman mass. “Just a bunch of hajis,”
as the U.S. soldiers say.
The
most profound racism led the Bush men to believe that the Iraqi
people have no society, that they are a blank slate to
be written on by the victor. Now the occupiers are reaping the
whirlwind of centuries, the final denouement of 
their
own murderous history. Shi’ites will not help the Pirates write
their final, glorious chapter. Kurds have every reason to believe
that they liberated themselves. To the Americans, Marsh Arabs
are just Shi’ites with darker complexions. Chaldean Catholics
are not numerous enough to play a collaborative role, and must
seek American protection for their liquor stores. The Americans
cannot distinguish between devout Sunni Muslims and the disproportionately
Sunni Baath Party, treating both the same and ensuring that both
will act, accordingly.
The
political fairy tale that justified the war made it impossible
for the U.S. to “properly” occupy Iraq by acting through the logical
societal group: the existing Baath Party structures, a significant
social force comprising millions of family members that is also
dominant in the civil service and the oil industry. Instead, the
most coherent secular segment of Iraqi society has been irreversibly
demonized – an active enemy of the occupation. (The Communist
Party, once 25,000 members strong until the U.S.-backed Baath
Party attempted to exterminate it, is the other significant secular
political presence in Iraq.) The Iraqi Army has been told to go
home and calmly wait for private employment – wishful thinking
on a massive scale.
Bush
is left with his handpicked exiles, who will drown in the country
of their birth.
Most
Iraqi business sectors have reason to fear American schemes to
transform their nation into something resembling Texas, especially
as they see that American corporations are already acting as if
they have powers of eminent domain over the country. Iraqi businessmen
needn’t worry. The U.S. occupation cannot take hold, because it
is not rooted in reality or connected to anything Iraqi. The Bush
men are unfit to occupy anyone, the worst possible candidates
for world hegemony. Like Wile E. Coyote, they are going down.
