Do not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.
– Ayn Rand
By Chris Floydlink
The reason that George W. Bush insists that "victory" is achievable in Iraq is not because he is deluded or isolated or ignorant or detached from reality or ill-advised.
No, it's that his definition of "victory" is different from those bruited about in his own rhetoric and in the ever-earnest disquisitions of the chattering classes in print and on-line. For Bush, victory is indeed at hand. It could come at any moment now, could already have been achieved by the time you read this. And the driving force behind his planned "surge" of American troops is the need to preserve those fruits of victory that are now ripening in his hand.
At any time within the next few days, the Iraqi Council of Ministers is expected to approve a new "hydrocarbon law" essentially drawn up by the Bush Administration and its U.K. lackey, the Independent on Sunday reports.
The new bill will "radically redraw the Iraqi oil industry and throw open the doors to the third-largest oil reserves in the world," say the paper, whose reporters have seen a draft of the new law. "It would allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil companies in the country since the industry was nationalized in 1972." If the government's parliamentary majority prevails, the law should take effect in March.
As the paper notes, the law will give Exxon, BP, Shell and other carbon cronies of the White House unprecedented sweetheart deals, allowing them to pump gargantuan profits from Iraq's nominally state-owned oilfields for decades to come.
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Here's a link to another story I just came across regarding corruption and ineptitude in Iraq and Washington D.C.:
ReplyDelete"The Same Game, Only More So
The Ironies of Bush and Iraq
By LAITH al-SAUD
On a personal note I have written very little on Iraq since 2006. There is good reason-nothing has changed. The same abusers of human rights exercise power with impunity, however incompetently. The democrats took office but they seemed poised to continue to support the war. And, of course, the year went out with a bang with the execution of Saddam Hussein, which was nothing less than an exhibition of Iraqi (and American) incompetence and stupidity. I personally was left wondering if this is how the Iraqi government kills someone when the whole world is watching imagine the final moments of the countless, nameless Iraqis who are found dead on Baghdad's streets everyday. In fact, little is left to the imagination, as the hundreds upon hundreds of dead tortured bodies found each month in Iraq are found blind folded and tied we can imagine those tragic last moments. Indeed, what could be left to the imagination? We know the current regime in Iraq is corrupt, incompetent and brutal; just as we know the current regime in Washington is corrupt, incompetent and brutal. Yet, the war machine rolls on and President Bush has announced that it will roll on with greater vigor."
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