The report on civilian FATAL casualties in a nation of 23 million is staggering, the equivalent in percentage terms of 460,000 civilian deaths if such havoc were wrought in the US.
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As others have pointed out, for every single death there are friends, family and witnesses of the carnage left behind to mourn and/or simmer with anger.
This means that there is a sort of horrific inverse square law working in which America's continued harassment and killing of Iraqis produces less, not more 'security' and 'stability'.
But, the US' complete lack of political legitimacy and goodwill compels it to employ the one tool at its disposal, lethal force, to try to control events.
And so, a circle becomes clearly visible.
For anyone who doubts the continued relevance and power of Greek tragedy, this wholly predictable series of steps downward to hell should provide a corrective example.
It is impossible for the US government, as presently configured and plagued, to borrow Zizek's phrase, with fantasies of limitless power, to intelligently handle the situation.
So the left's job, as I see it, is to not only demand certain things, such as withdrawal of US forces, but also to propose an alernative method for undoing the damage - a program that openly acknowledges the crimes committed while removing the criminal from direct control of the work of providing reconstrutive assistance.
The Busheviks are dedicated to extracting from Iraq various sorts of material and political plunder. Their plans cannot succeed because they are based upon a racist/orientalist mis-reading of the capabilities of the Iraqi people and a belief that they will idly, perhaps even happily, like the mythical grinning Negroes of old minstrel shows, sit by while their battered nation is reconfigured for the benefit of corporatists.
As we are seeing (so soon!) this is not going to happen.
Failure is inevitable. There can be no success. Those who caution that we must prepare ourselves for a "Bush wins" outcome and not predict disasters that may not happen are correct in principal but wrong in their understanding of the specifics before us. What we are witnessing is nothing less than the beginning of the long defeat of the US on the world stage.
The question is, will we have a program to present before and after the collapse of this house of cards?
DRM
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