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America's Best-Kept Secret

By Robert S. Becker

20 March, 2006
Countercurrents.org

There’s a growing consensus: George Bush is totally out of touch, oblivious to failure, his besieged head stuck in the sand. Perhaps so, but it’s also America, distracted by surface details that’s out of touch with underlying realities motivating the president.

One cost of hoodwinking the nation about why we’re really in Iraq is confusion, even depression why this administration stubbornly, almost irrationally, keeps sacrificing brave soldiers without more obvious payoffs. It’s hardly irrational, even if it turns out this specific war is wrongheaded. Public dismay is perfectly reasonable if you decide Iraq is mainly about Iraqis, terrorism, street insurgency, freedom, democracy, or even the removal of a despot. Let us not confuse administration incompetence at executing a bad war with blindness or lack of purpose.

A window on history

I am no ideologue but the war in Iraq makes sense only if it’s about wider economic empire, fueled by the need for resources and new markets. What the Bush crew is doing, however crudely or cynically, is consistent with a pattern of adventures beginning with the Spanish American war and reemerging in Greece, Iran, Korea, Guatemala, Panama, Cuba, Chile, Vietnam, and now Iraq.

The pattern follows proliferation. National leadership, whether Republican or Democratic, first tries diplomatic pressure, trade embargoes, even boycotts (as with Iraq). But when pressure fails, presidents approve more insidious, violent “regime change” (Iran and Chile come to mind). Finally, when the U.S. doesn’t get its way, in goes Air Force and the Marines (or, sadly here, the ill-trained National Guard).

Numbering Iraq in this historic pattern accounts for three unarguable facts, all considerably obscured in the vacuous debate —Iraq was strategically targeted for geo-political reasons, not terrorism or national security; Congress rushed to commit budget-busting funding virtually without discord; and, finally, the calculated absence of an exit plan speaks volumes about why we invaded and why we’re not leaving for a long, long time.

Why should we suppose a war fueled by lies would end in truthful admissions? Deception works because Americans, forgetting Vietnam, won’t openly endorse wars of conquest, so high-minded compulsions must be substituted. Mr. Bush differs from predecessors because of management ineptitude and especially bad lying, not motivations or goals.

Because this administration is the most “corporate” of all our presidencies, it suffered more when standard marketing and public relations for soap and tobacco failed. Deceived voters have limits, unlike when dissatisfied consumers, who just grab another brand.

No withdrawal, no victory marches

The inexorable pattern of the American empire explains why we can’t leave Iraq any more than Cuba or Germany or Korea. Yes, we will withdraw the most vulnerable troops, easy targets for insurgents, and reduce the daily death rate. But withdrawal will not only de-stabilize a region ready to explode, terrorism aside. Withdrawal raises the ominous, unacceptable prospect of Iranian puppets controlling a fundamentalist government in Iraq. The operations of empire emerge clearly false justifications disappear. Then, three unchallenged goals remain: regional geo-political control, input where and when Iraqi oil goes; and finally the assertion of American will as a super-power heeding its expansionist destiny.

Americans are in denial about the darker costs of our affluence, especially periodic human casualties charged to our culture’s unifying belief system – capitalism. No major bridge or dam comes without some loss of life, so why should war? Modern wars are thus never described realistically; they are sold as about bad guys and freedom and national self-determination, as with Korea, Vietnam, or Iraq.

Though we are bathed in political divisiveness, we agree on core beliefs. What almost all Americans (and Europeans) believe in, what transcends every cultural and social difference, is that free markets and capitalism produce the most goodies for the most people. Whether you’re a rabid evangelical, a liberal factory worker, a over-worked doctor, a rightwing jurist, an oblivious small business owner, or a well-heeled, detached CEO, we all bless and benefit American capitalism. It’s the core Yankee religion, starting with the Puritans, and no ones escapes, unless you live alone in the forest!

Dynamic capitalism – the American way

This belief system is by definition dynamic – growth and productivity depends on profits, which means ever-widening markets, which means expansion. Certainly, one hopes new markets behave peacefully but, like overheated gas, expansion cannot be denied, whether by Peking or Washington or bin Laden. “War is the health of the state” declared Randolph Bourne and our “state” is capitalism and New York is the capital.

What other dynamic better explains why we are in Iraq, why we must stay, and why there will likely be more military "adventures." I am no pacifist and acknowledge I share the blessings of this religion of business. I only wish someday one president will tell more of the truth, so that a majority of us may decide, in the open, whether to endorse this established payment plan or choose a more humane, less destructive path. It won’t be George Bush and it won’t be because his head is in the sand. After all, why we're really in Iraq, and not leaving fast, is one of America's best kept secrets!

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