[lbo-talk] Economics of the Occupation (was US papers ignore Bush admission)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

At 4:57 PM -0400 9/19/03, Doug Henwood wrote:
>A system that relies on bribes rather than internal mechanisms of 
>self-censorship is probably a bit less stable. Bribe recipients are 
>always vulnerable to a higher bidder.

Now, US intelligence analysts and military commanders are finally 
acknowledging that ordinary Iraqis are hostile to the US occupation 
of Iraq, so much so that the results of the polling in Iraq conducted 
by the State Department's intelligence branch remain classified 
(Douglas Jehl with David E. Sanger, "Iraqi's Bitterness Is Called 
Bigger Threat Than Terror," _New York Times_ 17 September 2003, 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/17/international/middleeast/17MILI.html>).

A few US officials are, however, still unwilling to admit the fact 
and continue to make claims such as the following: "He [an unnamed US 
military official] said the bounties being offered in Iraq for 
attacks on Americans had increased recently, to as much as $5,000, in 
what he called an indication that those opposed to the American 
occupation were having a harder time enlisting support" (Douglas Jehl 
with David E. Sanger, "Iraqi's Bitterness Is Called Bigger Threat 
Than Terror," _New York Times_ 17 September 2003, 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/17/international/middleeast/17MILI.html>).

I doubt that leaders of the Iraqi resistance (if any leaders exist) 
are capable of offering, or willing to offer, $5,000 bounties for 
attacks on Americans, but if the US government actually believes in 
the existence of bounties, it had better increase compensations for 
Iraqi privates and make the Empire's offers more competitive: 
"Officials are prepared to offer financial incentives for the 
recruits.  New Iraqi privates will be paid $70 a month, he said, 
compared with their previous military salaries of $2 a month" (Thom 
Shanker, "U.S. Is Speeding Up Plan for Creating a New Iraqi Army," 
_New York Times_ 18 September 2003, 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/18/international/middleeast/18MILI.html>). 
Free-market colonialism can do no less.
-- 
Yoshie

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