----- Original Message ----- From: Doug Henwood To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 6:44 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Any comments/links re Iraq elections?
Charles Brown wrote:
>Worse case scenario might be like Korea. Some 50 years ago the United
>Snakes invaded there and haven't left yet. The Americans have the nerve to
>call those in the North still resisting occupation part of an "Axis of Evil"
>that includes(d ?) Iraq.
I'm sure I'll get denouced as an apologist for imperialism for saying this, but really, Charles, if you asked almost anyone on earth whether he or she would prefer to live in North or South Korea, you'd have a hard time finding anyone who preferred the North.
Doug ========
L: Personally I'd rather be living on a beach somewhere in the South Pacific Islands, but we don't always get a choice of where we live.
We humans do the best wherever we are and wish for better things, unless the human comes from America, in which case they just take whatever they want, and trash everyone else's stuff.
(I still want a beach shack on Funafuti, or Suva.)
But we're still there (S. Korea), and what *they* got from the deal was:
War "footing"forever, some very rapid, VERY DIRTY, industrial development, which drives their economy as long as they are the low cost supplier of all the crap Americans love to use (like cars that last ten years and fall apart), or perhaps an industry that is rapidly becoming a nightmare even when measured by black-lung and asbestosis epidemiological standards. The computer *manufacturing* industry.
But their teenagers can afford CD players.
BTW, Did I mention that we are still there? L =========
Travus T. Hipp: Commentary From The Comstock Dispatch
Comchron 02/04/05
NO EXIT
The apparent success of our operations to transplant democracy, or something like it, in the shifting sands of Araby is already prompting cries from left and right for some sort of date for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.
Democrats, led by the usual ersatz liberal coterie of Senators Kennedy, Kerry and Boxer, whose seat is safe for six years and her constituents love bomb throwers in politics.
Now that the first stumbling steps toward self rule have been taken, goes the argument, we can step back and watch with pride while the virus of democracy spreads throughout the Moslem crescent.
A favorite fantasy, but in the vernacular of the New Jersey mob, "forget about it.!".
The reason we don't appear to have an "exit strategy" is because we have no intention of leaving.
Next year the newly created "Marionette " government, (controlled by strings instead of a the more direct hand up the backside), will enter into a mutual defense agreement allowing the U.S. to maintain tactical air and ground bases in the less populated sectors of the country as well as long term training and assistance for both the Iraqi police and military.
We are building seventeen of these permanent bases currently, with other facilities being planed to create a network of secure sites, reachable only by single destination access roads and helo airlift.
The pattern is reminiscent of the French Foreign Legion system of desert forts in the Sahara or Diem Bien Phu in Vietnam, neither of which were strategically successful is suppressing local insurgencies.
But the U.S. is not interested in eliminating the resistance.
As long as attacks are a daily reality we have an excuse for our continued presence, but the real purpose of our semi permanent deployment is basing our forces to strike in minutes, anywhere in the region from Afghanistan west to Beirut, particularly Iran and Syria, the two nominees for the next democratization offensive if you believe in the "New American Century" script being played out by the Bushwankers in Washington.
Pundits are predicting that the only way our forces will leave Iraq is on the march to Iran or Syria.
By seeking a commitment to pull out, the Democrats are chasing butterflies in a hurricane.
For better or worse America is embarked on a course of world conquest, with democracy as our sword, and there is damn all anyone can do except wait it out and hope that the rest of the world can resist our assault.
There is no way out except full ahead, if you find yourself deep in the mud.
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Reprinted by Permission Copyright Cabale News Service 2005
Website ->> http://fatchance.org/travus/
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