Reading Materials
- This Brave Nation
- Stuff Stoners Like
- Blackle
- JBRhapsody Blog
- The Nation
- BushGREENWATCH
- In These Times
- Center For American Progress
- The Cost of War
- Gerbil's Music List
- CommonDreams
- 525Reasons
- The Archive-LLAMA
- The Progressive Magazine
- Stone-Leave No Unturned
- Friends of Cheese
- The Slip
- Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
- Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey Setlists
- CounterPunch
- Jambands
- Jambase
- Cheese Photos
- Open Democracy
- BitTorrent
- Yonder Mountain String Band
- The String Cheese Incident
- GreenDisk
- Deadesq
- AlterNet
- The Independent
- The Future of Freedom Foundation
- Marijuana Policy Project
- Democracy For America
- Drug Policy Alliance
- The Daily Kos
- Sinclair Action
A Drip Into The Past
- March 14, 2004
- March 21, 2004
- March 28, 2004
- April 04, 2004
- April 11, 2004
- April 18, 2004
- April 25, 2004
- May 02, 2004
- May 09, 2004
- May 16, 2004
- May 23, 2004
- May 30, 2004
- June 06, 2004
- June 13, 2004
- June 20, 2004
- June 27, 2004
- July 04, 2004
- July 11, 2004
- July 18, 2004
- August 01, 2004
- August 15, 2004
- August 22, 2004
- August 29, 2004
- September 05, 2004
- September 12, 2004
- September 19, 2004
- September 26, 2004
- October 03, 2004
- October 10, 2004
- October 31, 2004
- November 07, 2004
- November 14, 2004
- November 21, 2004
- November 28, 2004
- December 05, 2004
- December 12, 2004
- December 19, 2004
- December 26, 2004
- January 16, 2005
- January 23, 2005
- January 30, 2005
- February 06, 2005
- February 13, 2005
- February 20, 2005
- February 27, 2005
- March 06, 2005
- April 03, 2005
- April 17, 2005
- April 24, 2005
- May 01, 2005
- May 08, 2005
- June 05, 2005
- August 21, 2005
- June 29, 2008
Put It In Your Pantry with Your Cupcakes
Thursday, May 05, 2005
How To End The War
The Big Lie
The administration says the war was about fighting for democracy. That was the big lie they resorted to when they were caught in the other lies. But it’s a different kind of a lie in the sense that it’s a useful lie. The lie that the United States invaded Iraq to bring freedom and democracy not just to Iraq but, as it turns out, to the whole world, is tremendously useful—because we can first expose it as a lie and then we can join with Iraqis to try to make it true. So it disturbs me that a lot of progressives are afraid to use the language of democracy now that George W. Bush is using it. We are somehow giving up on the most powerful emancipatory ideas ever created, of self-determination, liberation and democracy.
And it’s absolutely crucial not to let Bush get away with stealing and defaming these ideas—they are too important.
In looking at democracy in Iraq, we first need to make the distinction between elections and democracy. The reality is the Bush administration has fought democracy in Iraq at every turn.
Why? Because if genuine democracy ever came to Iraq, the real goals of the war—control over oil, support for Israel, the construction of enduring military bases, the privatization of the entire economy—would all be lost. Why? Because Iraqis don’t want them and they don’t agree with them. They have said it over and over again—first in opinion polls, which is why the Bush administration broke its original promise to have elections within months of the invasion. I believe Paul Wolfowitz genuinely thought that Iraqis would respond like the contestants on a reality TV show and say: “Oh my God. Thank you for my brand-new shiny country.” They didn’t. They protested that 500,000 people had lost their jobs. They protested the fact that they were being shut out of the reconstruction of their own country, and they made it clear they didn’t want permanent U.S. bases.
That’s when the administration broke its promise and appointed a CIA agent as the interim prime minister. In that period they locked in—basically shackled—Iraq’s future governments to an International Monetary Fund program until 2008. This will make the humanitarian crisis in Iraq much, much deeper. Here’s just one example: The IMF and the World Bank are demanding the elimination of Iraq’s food ration program, upon which 60 percent of the population depends for nutrition, as a condition for debt relief and for the new loans that have been made in deals with an unelected government.
In these elections, Iraqis voted for the United Iraqi Alliance. In addition to demanding a timetable for the withdrawal of troops, this coalition party has promised that they would create 100 percent full employment in the public sector—i.e., a total rebuke of the neocons’ privatization agenda. But now they can’t do any of this because their democracy has been shackled. In other words, they have the vote, but no real power to govern.
The Big Lie
The administration says the war was about fighting for democracy. That was the big lie they resorted to when they were caught in the other lies. But it’s a different kind of a lie in the sense that it’s a useful lie. The lie that the United States invaded Iraq to bring freedom and democracy not just to Iraq but, as it turns out, to the whole world, is tremendously useful—because we can first expose it as a lie and then we can join with Iraqis to try to make it true. So it disturbs me that a lot of progressives are afraid to use the language of democracy now that George W. Bush is using it. We are somehow giving up on the most powerful emancipatory ideas ever created, of self-determination, liberation and democracy.
And it’s absolutely crucial not to let Bush get away with stealing and defaming these ideas—they are too important.
In looking at democracy in Iraq, we first need to make the distinction between elections and democracy. The reality is the Bush administration has fought democracy in Iraq at every turn.
Why? Because if genuine democracy ever came to Iraq, the real goals of the war—control over oil, support for Israel, the construction of enduring military bases, the privatization of the entire economy—would all be lost. Why? Because Iraqis don’t want them and they don’t agree with them. They have said it over and over again—first in opinion polls, which is why the Bush administration broke its original promise to have elections within months of the invasion. I believe Paul Wolfowitz genuinely thought that Iraqis would respond like the contestants on a reality TV show and say: “Oh my God. Thank you for my brand-new shiny country.” They didn’t. They protested that 500,000 people had lost their jobs. They protested the fact that they were being shut out of the reconstruction of their own country, and they made it clear they didn’t want permanent U.S. bases.
That’s when the administration broke its promise and appointed a CIA agent as the interim prime minister. In that period they locked in—basically shackled—Iraq’s future governments to an International Monetary Fund program until 2008. This will make the humanitarian crisis in Iraq much, much deeper. Here’s just one example: The IMF and the World Bank are demanding the elimination of Iraq’s food ration program, upon which 60 percent of the population depends for nutrition, as a condition for debt relief and for the new loans that have been made in deals with an unelected government.
In these elections, Iraqis voted for the United Iraqi Alliance. In addition to demanding a timetable for the withdrawal of troops, this coalition party has promised that they would create 100 percent full employment in the public sector—i.e., a total rebuke of the neocons’ privatization agenda. But now they can’t do any of this because their democracy has been shackled. In other words, they have the vote, but no real power to govern.
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