[WCUSP] Greg Palast- Waist Deep in the Big Muddy
yvonne simmons
roweenayvonne at yahoo.com
Sat Jan 13 06:37:47 CST 2007
> * WAIST DEEP IN THE BIG MUDDY
> by Greg Palast
> Thursday, January 11, 2007
> *
> George W. Bush has an urge to surge. Like every
> junkie, he asks for
> just one more fix: let him inject just 21,000 more
> troops and that will
> win the war.
>
> Been there. Done that. In 1965, Tom Paxton sang,
>
> */ Lyndon Johnson told the nation
> Have no fear of escalation.
> I am trying everyone to please.
> Though it isn't really war,
> We're sending 50,000 more
> To help save Vietnam from the Vietnamese.
> /*
> Four decades later, Bush is asking us to save Iraq
> from the Iraqis.
>
> There's always a problem with giving a junkie
> another fix. It can only
> make things worse. Our maximum leader says that
> unless he gets to
> mainline another 21,000 troops, "Iran would be
> emboldened in its pursuit
> of nuclear weapons," and terrorists "would have a
> safe haven from which
> to plan and launch attacks on the American people."
>
>
> Excuse me, but didn't we hear that same promise in
> 2003? Nearly four
> years ago, on the eve of invasion, this same George
> Bush promised, "The
> terrorist threat to America and the world will be
> diminished the moment
> that Saddam Hussein is disarmed."
>
> Instead of diminishing the threat from terrorists,
> Bush now admits, "Al
> Qaeda has a home base in Anbar province" --
> something inconceivable
> under Saddam's rule.
>
> Four years ago, Bush promised us, "When the
> dictator has departed,
> [Iraq] can set an example to all the Middle East of
> a vital and peaceful
> and self-governing nation." Just send in the 82d
> Airborne and,
> lickety-split, we'd have, "A new Iraq that is
> prosperous and free."
>
> Well, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice,
> shame on me.
>
> Here's my question: *Who asked the waiter to
> deliver this dish? Who
> asked for the 21,000 soldiers?
> *
> We know the US military didn't ask for the 21,000
> troops. (Outgoing
> commander General George Casey called for a troop
> reduction.)
>
> We know the Iraqi government didn't ask for the
> 21,000 troops. (Prime
> Minister Nuri al-Maliki is reportedly unhappy about
> a visible increase
> in foreign occupiers).
>
> So who wants the occupation to continue? The
> answer is in Riyadh.
> When the King of Saudi Arabia hauled Dick Cheney
> before his throne on
> Thanksgiving weekend, the keeper of America's oil
> laid down the law to
> Veep: the US will not withdraw from Iraq.
>
> According to Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi who signals to
> the US government the
> commands and diktats of the House of Saud, the
> Saudis are concerned that
> a US pull-out will leave their Sunni brothers in
> Iraq to be slaughtered
> by Shia militias. More important, the Saudis will
> not tolerate a
> Shia-majority government in Iraq controlled by the
> Shia mullahs of Iran.
> A Shia combine would threaten Saudi Arabia's
> hegemony in the OPEC oil
> cartel.
>
> In other words, it's about the oil.
>
> So what's the solution? What's my plan? How do we
> get out of Iraq?
> Answer: the same way we got out of 'Nam. In ships.
>
> But can we just watch from the ship rail as Shia
> slaughter Sunnis in
> Baghdad, Sunnis murder Shia in Anbar, Kurds
> "cleanse" Kirkuk of Turkmen
> and so on in a sickening daisy-chain of ethnic
> atrocities?
>
> No. There's a real alternative. And it isn't more
> troops, George.
>
> Let's imagine that somehow we could rip away the
> strings that allow
> Cheney and Rove and Abdullah to control our puppet
> president and he
> somehow, like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz,
> suddenly grew a brain.
> His speech last night would have sounded like this:
>
> / "My fellow Americans. Iraq is going to hell in a
> handbag. So the
> whole shebang doesn't collapse into mayhem and
> madness, we need to send
> in 21,000 more troops. So I've just wired King
> Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
> and told him to send them.
>
> "My missive to the monarch reads: Dear Abdullah.
> It's time your
> 16,000 princelings got out of their Rolls Royces and
> formed the core of
> an Islamic Peacekeeping Force to prevent mass murder
> in Iraq. The
> American people are tired of you using the 82d
> Airborne as your private
> mercenary army. It seems like the Saudi military's
> marching song is,
> 'Onward Christian Soldiers.'
>
> "Well, King Ab, we're out of here. We're folding
> tents and loading the
> wagons. For four years now, Saudis have been
> secretly funding the
> berserkers in the Iraqi 'insurgency' while the
> Iranians are backing the
> crazies in the militias. Well, we're telling you
> and the Persians:
> you're going to have to stop using your checkbooks
> to fund a proxy war
> and instead start keeping the peace. It's time you
> put your own tushies
> in the line of fire for a change."
>
> "If the African Union nations, poor as they are,
> can maintain a
> peacekeeping force to stop killings in Sudan and
> Senegal, you Saudis,
> with all the military toys we've sold you, can
> certainly join with your
> Muslim brothers in Jordan, Iran and Turkey to take
> responsibility for
> your region's peace.
>
> "And when you get to Fallujah, don't forget to drop
> us a postcard."
> /
> Well, that's my fantasy. But instead, War Junkie
> George will get his
> fix of another 21,000 American soldiers.
>
> It reminds me far too chillingly of a Pete Seeger
> tune written when LBJ
> was saving Vietnam from Vietnamese. It was based on
> the true story of a
> US platoon in training, wading into the rising
> Mississippi, whose
> commander order them to keep going, deeper and
> deeper -- until they drowned.
>
> * We're waste deep in the Big Muddy
> And the big fool says to push on.
> *
>
>
>
> ************
> Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times
> bestseller, "Armed
> Madhouse." His reports on Iraq and oil for BBC-TV
> and Harper's Magazine
> can be viewed at www.GregPalast.com
>
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