Monday, January 06, 2003

Iraq: Liberation, Invasion or Colonization?
Dubya has been at it again. Think for a moment, he told us. Think about what Saddam has done. Think about what we can do for Iraq. And then you'll see that we won't be invading the country, but freeing its people.

A little premature, isn't it. Or is it? Nobody knows because, at the moment, America is the only country in the entire world which has said it's going in there sometime soon. It's true that Britain's Prime Minister is hawkishly keeping his eyes open, and kicked off 2003 with a speech full of dire warnings of worldwide threats to peace and security. (Threats to peace and security, incidentally, which are anything but war on Iraq.) So far, though, he hasn't said yes. His ministers, and others, are increasingly saying no. So, where does this place George W Bush?

In a word: alone. America is massing troops in the Gulf. Britain is due to send its biggest carrier there tomorrow, but even in a few months, its commitment of people and hardware would still be less than America's. There's a very good reason for that: no concrete plans have been made because, unlike the once-in-a-lifetime groundswell of world support for pursuing Osama and the Taleban in Afghanistan, nobody in the world knows why they want to invade - Saddam is not Osama bin Laden; there's no real world interest there. Apart from America, no single country anywhere even knows if there's any point to it, but all countries can see at least one glistening end-result: OIL.

Now, don't get me wrong here. I'm not suggesting for one millisecond that America just wants to boot Saddam up his hairy Arab crack and grab some black stuff. I'm really not. The American hawks do actually believe that a regime change would be beneficial to the country. Why they believe this is beyond me. Why would a population which naturally inclines to a multifarious, and sometimes violent 'clan-based' rule, possibly want democracy? They would have to take their place, and recognise their *responsibilities to*, and in, the wider world. America would allow nothing less. Of course, they'd all rather welcome Saddam's downfall because it would give them the chance to get that system established. Self-rule for Iraqis would mean a multiplicity of different local rulers. And yet the press has been so full of a single word, Iraq, that you'd almost be forgiven for thinking it's a single people.

Anyway, so what if they do or they don't have a change of regime. America doesn't like Saddam. America despises his filthy little moustache. Furthermore, the portraits of him in various heroic poses are almost as kitsch as the Stars and Stripes flying all over America. Get the shitty, weaselly sand-nigger off his perch and let's show the world we whupped his ass. Then, let's set up a postwar interregnum in Iraq, which we won't call a ruling council because that would give us too much actual responsibility, and let's make the interregnum as slow as we can so that we can get as much OIL as possible out of there.

Oh, come on Britain, you know you want to get in the car with us. Come oooonnn! :o) You'll like it, I promise. We suckee suckee. Aww, please think about it? We can't do it without you! Britain? Britain. I'm not going to ask again... Now. Get in the fuckin' car.

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