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Mystic Power
admin THC-Ministry YahooGroup
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 3605
Location: Key West
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 Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 11:28 pm Post subject: WHY THERE WAS NO EXIT PLAN |
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WHY THERE WAS NO EXIT PLAN
Lewis Seiler, Dan Hamburg
Monday, April 30, 2007 - San Francisco Chronicle
(Lewis Seiler is president of Voice of the
Environment. Dan Hamburg, a former U.S.
representative, is executive director.)
There are people in Washington ... who never intend to
withdraw military forces from Iraq and they're looking
for 10, 20, 50 years in the future ... the reason that
we went into Iraq was to establish a permanent
military base in the Gulf region, and I have never
heard any of our leaders say that they would commit
themselves to the Iraqi people that 10 years from now
there will be no military bases of the United States
in Iraq.
-- former President Jimmy Carter, Feb. 3, 2006
For all the talk about timetables and benchmarks, one
might think that the United States will end the
military occupation of Iraq within the lifetimes of
the readers of this opinion editorial. Think again.
There is to be no withdrawal from Iraq, just as there
has been no withdrawal from hundreds of places around
the world that are outposts of the American empire. As
UC San Diego professor emeritus Chalmers Johnson put
it, "One of the reasons we had no exit plan from Iraq
is that we didn't intend to leave."
The United States maintains 737 military bases in 130
countries across the globe. They exist for the purpose
of defending the economic interests of the United
States, what is euphemistically called "national
security." In order to secure favorable access to
Iraq's vast reserves of light crude, the United States
is spending billions on the construction of at least
five large permanent military bases throughout that
country.
A new Iraq oil law, largely written by the Coalition
Provisional Authority, is planned for ratification by
June. This law cedes control of Iraq's oil to western
powers for 30 years. There is major opposition to the
proposed law within Iraq, especially among the
country's five trade union federations that represent
hundreds of thousands of oil workers. The United
States is working hard to surmount this opposition by
appealing directly to the al-Maliki government in
Iraq.
The attack upon, and subsequent occupation of, Iraq
can be seen as a direct result of the 2001 National
Energy Policy Development Group (better known as vice
president Cheney's energy task force) that was
comprised largely of oil and energy company
executives.
This task force -- the proceedings of which have been
kept secret by the administration on the grounds of
"executive privilege" -- recommended that the U.S.
government support initiatives in Middle Eastern
countries "to open up areas of their energy sector to
foreign investment." As Antonio Juhasz, an analyst
with Oil Change International wrote last month in the
New York Times, "One invasion and a great deal of
political engineering by the Bush administration
later, this is exactly what the proposed Iraq oil law
would achieve."
The people of the United States have indicated, in the
national election last November and in countless
polls, that they no longer support the Bush
administration's war. The Scooter Libby trial revealed
that top administration officials, including the vice
president, "cherry-picked" and distorted intelligence
in order to sell a "pre-emptive" war to a spooked
public.
The squandering of hundreds of billions of dollars,
some billions of which, according to Seymour Hersh
writing in the New Yorker, is being siphoned into
"black-ops" programs being run out of Cheney's office
(a stunning redux of Iran-Contra carried out by many
of the same actors), has also strained the patience
and credulity of the American people.
Another betrayal is the "contracting out" of
"war-related activities" to corporations such as
Halliburton, Bechtel, Chemonics and Blackwater.
Halliburton, Vice President Cheney's previous
employer, calls itself an "energy services company"
but has tentacles reaching into nearly every aspect of
the war (originally dubbed Operation Iraqi Liberation
until some bright bulb among the Bushies realized that
"OIL" might not be the best handle for this venture).
Halliburton has also profited handsomely from no-bid
government contracts awarded in the wake of Hurricane
Katrina, the construction at the national
embarrassment known as "Gitmo," and most recently,
from the fiasco at Walter Reed Army Hospital in
Washington, D.C.
Unfortunately, all this corruption, mayhem and death
are good for some (or it wouldn't go on).
The U.S. military budget, larger than the military
budgets of the rest of the world's nations combined,
continues skyward, even without all the
"supplementals" passed regularly by Congress to fight
the "war on terror."
The question we must ask as citizens is this: Is the
United States a democratic republic or an empire?
History demonstrates that it's not possible to be
both.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2007/04/30/EDG3JPH50O1.DTL&type=printable
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Follow Your Bliss,
Ben
_________________
"We are the Ones we have been waiting for."
~Hopi Elder ~
"In Lak'ech"
~ Ancient Mayan: "I am another YOU." ~ |
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aeroplane
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 10 Nov 2004
Posts: 1472
Location: Valhalla
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| Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 1:04 am Post subject: |
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Man, I do not know where to begin on this one. But let me start here. Could it be that because we are a site that allows (or usually allows) for the freedom of speech, that some of our members could be suffering undue consequenses as a result of their stance against the hidden empire of the West???
_________________
"Penalties against the possession of a drug
should not be more damaging to the individual
than the drug itself."
US President Jimmy Carter |
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Mystic Power
admin THC-Ministry YahooGroup
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 3605
Location: Key West
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| Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 1:40 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Could it be that because we are a site that allows (or usually allows) for the freedom of speech, that some of our members could be suffering undue consequenses as a result of their stance against the hidden empire of the West??? |
Entirely possible.
Of greater importance is the fact that even that won't shut us up. 
Bliss on, in the Dynamic Human Spirit which refuses to submit!
Ben
_________________
"We are the Ones we have been waiting for."
~Hopi Elder ~
"In Lak'ech"
~ Ancient Mayan: "I am another YOU." ~ |
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Brother Adam
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 04 Feb 2005
Posts: 1915
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| Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 1:48 am Post subject: |
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I don't doubt it in the least. In fact. I expect it.
_________________
-Brother Adam (we are all one family)
“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
-James Madison
Police officers acquitted for beating a 64 yr old man recently in New Orleans. In the words of their defense attorney "all he had to do was comply"....and they wouldn't have fractured his face. |
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