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Today's Stories July 21, 2006 George Galloway John Cornford and the Fight for the Spanish Republic P. Sainath Indian Prime Minister Faces the Dead Farmer Problem Aseem Shrivastava The Iraq War is a Huge Success Alexander Cockburn Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel: Everything You Need to Know Website of the Day FromIsraeltoLebanon July 20, 2006 William S. Lind Why Hezbollah is Winning Robert Jensen Florida Puts History on Probation John Ross AMLO Presidente! Tom Hayden I Was Israel's Dupe Paul Craig Roberts The Unfolding Horror Show July 19, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Massacres Soar in Central Iraq: Maliki Government Discredited Trish Schuh Israel Targets, Flattens Beirut TV Station HQ Jonathan Cook Is Israel Using Arab Villages As Human Shields? Vicente Navarro The Spanish Civil War, 70 Years On: The Deafening Silence on Franco's Genocide July 17 / 18 2006 Mike Whitney Israel's Shameful Attack on Gaza Kathleen Christison Atrocities in the Promised Land July 14 / 15, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn How Venice is Dying Tanya Reinhart The IDF is Hungry for War Robert Fisk Beirut Waits: Is Damascus the Key? Daniel Cassidy How the Irish Invented Jazz Winslow Wheeler Pentagon Budget Gimmickry: When a Cut is Actually an Increase Hugh O'Shaughnessy In Amazonia: Slavery and Deforestation M. Shahid Alam Israel, the US and the New Orientalism William S. Lind Two Signposts in Iraq Ramzy Baroud Racism Plagues Media Coverage of Gaza Assault Gilad Atzmon Echoes of the Wehrmacht Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Railroading Your Rights Samar Assad A History of Israeli-Palestinian Prisoner Exchanges Ron Jacobs Japan and Pre-Emptive Strikes: Why Would They Want to Go There? Lee Ballinger A New Kind of Jim Crow? Walter Brasch A World Without Fajitas?: the Rightwing's Language Police Dave Lindorff The Bush Swingers?: They Broke the Law and People Died Clifton Ross Up from Below in Oaxaca Tom Crumpacker Planning for the Re-Colonization of Cuba Ricardo Alarcon The Mad Annexationist William Hughes Rev. Billy Graham: A War-Monger in the Pulpit Susie Day Bugging Hillary Farrah Hassen The Road to Gitmo: Dramatizing the Banality of Evil Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Engel and Davies July 13, 2006 Saul Landau Lies as Patriotism? Youmans / Erakat Divestment, Corporate Engagement and Israel Dave Lindorff Cut and Run: a Winning Strategy Ron Jacobs Dogs of War Barking at the Moon Col. Dan Smith Iraq: Fool Me Twice June 22, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Friendly Fire Ambush Winslow T. Wheeler Lockheed, the Senator and the F-22 Tanya Reinhart A Week of Israeli Restraint Mike Marqusee The Forest Gate Raid William Blum Why Bush's Iraq is Worse Than Saddam's July 12, 2006 John Ross Mexico Splits in Half: the Election Hits the Streets John Stauber The CIA Propagandist and Former Prankster Stewart Brand: John Rendon's Long, Strange Trip in the Terror Wars Robert Boston Top 10 Powerbrokers of the Religious Right Wayne S. Smith Bush's New Cuba Plan: Embargoes, Blacklists and Assassination Plots John Graham Secrecy and the Curtain of Oz Ed Kinane Arrested for Failing to Obey a Lawful Order to Cease Protesting an Unlawful War: My Statement to the US District Court Kevin Prosen Goodbye Mr. Zeidler, You Will Be Missed Jonathan Cook Israel's Latest Bueaucratic Obscenity Website of the Day Addicted to Oil: Starring GW Bush   July 11, 2006 Dave Lindorff Does a State of War Give Bush the Right to Commit War Crimes? Dave Zirin Why I Wear My Zidane Jersey Mokhiber / Weissman Boeing's Criminal Agreement: Odd and Unusual Amira Hass A War on Families Clare Hanrahan The Last Free Fourth of July? Brian Cloughey Stop Blaming Pakistan Felice Pace The US Media and the World Cup Raed Jarrar Iraq: Raped Website of the Day Bad Boy of Gitmo   July 10, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Courting Doom with North Korea Uri Avnery A One-Sided War Roger Burbach Democracy Betrayed: Electoral Fraud and Rebellion in Mexico Ron Jacobs The New SDS: Toward a Radical Youth Movement Joshua Frank Sectarian Flames in Iraq Missy Comley Beattie Bush's Stunning Admission to Larry King Alexander Cockburn The War in Iraq: a Dreadful Mistake July 8 / 9, 2006 Weekend Edition Stephen Green When War Criminals Retire Paul Craig Roberts Republic or Empire?: Lessons from Stanford Greg Moses Boots Down on the Rio Grande Ralph Nader The Wail of the Oceans Laura Carlsen Mexico's Election Lacks Credibility Conn Hallinan Dumping Musharraf: Is Pakistan Expendable? John Chuckman Afghanistan is No One's War Fred Gardner Big Pharma's Strange Holy Grail: Cannabis Without Euphoria? Dr. Tod Mikuriya Cannabis as a Frontline Treatment for Childhood Mental Disorders Pierre Tristam Missile Envy: Is N. Korea Bush's Most Reliable Ally? Lucinda Marshall Deep Sexing the News: the Rape of Iraq David Swanson Command Rape: the Ordeal of Suzanne Swift Heather Gray The Spiral of Violence: What the Dead Might Tell Us Dave Zirin / John Cox French Soccer and the Future of Europe: Le Pen's Racists vs. Zindane and Henry Mark Engler Mexico's Fear of Democracy: Elites, Fraud and the Status Quo Michael Lettieri Mexico: Don't Discount a Recount Ron Jacobs 2008 Might Be Too Late: the Case for Impeachment Now Jamal Juma' Globalizing the Occupation Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Engel and Kirbach   July 7, 2006 John Ross Anatomy of a Fraud Foretold: Mexico's Surreal Elections July 6, 2006 Nick Dearden Profiting from the Occupation: the Corporate Interests Behind the War on Palestine John Stanton Nationalize the Defense Industry Ralph Nader The Politics of the Minimum Wage Laray Polk Cambodia Then; Gaza Now Saul Landau Who Mourned the Victims of the US Covert War on Chile? Joshua Frank Sweet Angst, Power Chords and Politics: Farewell Sleater-Kinney William S. Lind To Be or Not to Be a State? Hamas and 4th Generation War Adelman / Lindorff Impeachment Comes to Main Street, USA Jonathan Cook An Experiment in Human Despair Website of the Day Adulterers in Chief? July 5, 2006 Mike Whitney Is Cheney Betting on Economic Collapse?: the Veep's Curious Investment Portfolio Saul Landau False Axioms: Star Democrats and Iraq Massacres Ramzy Baroud And Israel Shall Be Safe Again Missy Comley Beattie An Axis of Nuts: Ready, Aim, Fear Arthur Neslen A Way Out of the Gaza Crisis? Vincent Maruffi Party Politics in Connecticut: Lieberman, Lamont and the Greens Paul Cantor Aberrations: Hell, High Water and the Moral High Ground Paul D. Johnson Mystery Meat: Let's Be Honest About Food's Origin David Price Shouting Down Nazis in Olympia July 4, 2006 Col. Dan Smith Iraq and Independence Day: Lessons from the War of 1812 Chris Floyd American Power in Mahmudiyah Marjorie Cohn Israel's Collective Punishment of Gaza James Brooks Israel 9,000 Palestine 1: Destroying the Gaza Strip Medea Benjamin "Dictatress of the World:" Has America Become JQ Adams' Worst Nightmare? Matt Reichel An Independence Day Lesson for the American Left from France Elisa Salasin Why I am Fasting Today Rick Wilhelm Will Lieberman Apologize to Ralph Nader? Paul Craig Roberts Rape, Lies and Murder Website of the Day A Mighty Handsome Family   July 3, 2006 Robert Bryce Gaza in the Dark: Poor, Frustrated and Powerless Dr. Bouthaina Shaban "I Hope You're Not Here to Talk About the Palestinians" Julia Olmstead The Biofuel Illusion: Running on Top Soil Dave Lindorff The Real Meaning of the Hamdan Ruling: Bush Adm. Has Committed War Crimes Andres Gomez A Mockery of Justice Alan Singer Another Encounter with Chuck Schumer: Just as Hawkish as Hillary, But Nastier Alexander Cockburn Temple of Mammon, Planet of Doom July 1/2, 2006 Weekend Edition Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Assaults on Freedom: What's to Stop Him? Stephen T. Banko Echoes from Vietnam; Nightmares in Iraq Daniel Cassidy How the Irish Invented Slang: the Bunkum of Bunkum (for Dizzy Gillespie) Fawzia Afzal-Khan The Class Behind the Muslim Jeff Taylor The Sandy Foundation of the White House: a Bible-Believing Christian's View of Bush John Ross Mexico: There's a Riot Going On Greg Moses Psycho-Management Hits Mexico's Maquiladoras Laura Carlsen Mexico's Elections: a Choice for Change Justin E.H. Smith Lethal Injection and Other Fashion Trends Brian Cloughley Different Worlds: When Liberation is Worse Than Oppression Anthony Papa Punishing Addiction: No Walk in the Park for Dwight Gooden Mike Ferner Getting Busted for Wearing a Peace T-Shirt Jerry Tucker Liberalism's Long Goodbye: McGovern Hoists the White Flag Jane Goodall / Rick Asselta Remembering the Marshall Islands Phyllis Pollack Roll Over Beethoven: Chuck Berry is Back in Town Poets' Basement Salasin, Swindell, Ferri-Smith and Engel   June 30, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Supreme Rebuke: Bush Loses Gitmo Case Heather Williams Will Mexicans Ignore What Bolivians Learned? Burbach / Cantor Yellowback Democrats: the Party of Cut-and-Run (from Principle) Nick Dearden Crime in the Valley: Life on the Other Side of Palestine Michael J. Smith Under the Broadcast Flag: Intellectual Property as Intellectual Theft Brian Concannon The Return to Haiti: a Homecoming for Aristide? Virginia Tilley Israel's Appalling Act: Starving in the Dark   June 29, 2006 Bill Quigley Gutting New Orleans Ron Jacobs Killing a Nation to Rescue a Soldier Paul Craig Roberts The High Price of American Gullibility June 28, 2006 Jorge Mariscal Mexican-American Soldiers, Iraq and the Politics of Immigrant Bashing Greg Moses Down in Pinal County: Where the Pun's on Us Mark Weisbrot Mexico: Their Brand is Crisis Ramzy Baroud Re-Interpreting Iraq: the Latest Propaganda Campaign Dave Lindorff Redacting the Constitution: Why Signing Statements Matter William S. Lind Neither Shall the Sword: War in a Fouth Generation World Mike Ferner 50 Years Down the Wrong Direction: Taken for a Ride on the Interstate Highway System Zoltan Grossman Military Resistance: a Brief History   June 27, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Playing Politics with Timetables Benjamin / Jarrar Leading Dems Froth Over Amnesty Plan William Hughes Roadmap to Starvation Doug Giebel Showdown in Montana: Burns vs. Testor Uri Avnery The World Cup and Middle East Peace Alexander Cockburn Hitchens Hails the "Glorious War"   June 26, 2006 Don Santina American Rituals: Massacres, Baseball and Apple Pies Ralph Nader Beyond Binary Politics Dave Lindorff CounterPunch v. CounterPunch: Taking Impeachment on the Road Rafael Rodriguez-Cruz An Interview with Mumia Abu-Jamal on Hispanics and Latin America Evelyn Pringle Big Pharma's Big Graveyard: Drug Profits, Fraud and Death Jonathan Cook Israeli "Retaliation" and Double Standards June 23, 2006 Youmans / Erakat Divestment, Corporate Engagement and Israel Dave Lindorff Cut and Run: a Winning Strategy Ron Jacobs Dogs of War Barking at the Moon Col. Dan Smith Iraq: Fool Me Twice June 22, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Friendly Fire Ambush Winslow T. Wheeler Lockheed, the Senator and the F-22 Tanya Reinhart A Week of Israeli Restraint Mike Marqusee The Forest Gate Raid William Blum Why Bush's Iraq is Worse Than Saddam's June 21, 2006 Ramzy Baroud Zarqawi's Death: Myth vs. Reality Patrick Cockburn Embassy Work as Death Sentence Gary Leupp Making the Case for Impeachment Greg Moses Elite Logic at the Border June 20, 2006 Fred Gardner The Long War on Aspirin Omar Waraich Ode to Joy: Watching Blair Sink Christopher Reed Japan Nixes Payments to Its Wartime Slaves CP Newswire Coca Cola Takes a Hit Jonathan Cook Israel Engineers Another Cover-Up   June 19, 2006 Bill Quigley HUD's Bulldozers and the Poor of New Orleans John Walsh Tears of a Clown: Al Franken's War Mike Whitney The Zoom Lens War: Bush's Baghdad Photo Op Alexander Cockburn The Left and the Blathersphere June 16 / 18, 2006 Weekend Edition Kathy / Bill Christision The Power of the Israel Lobby Joseph Nevins On the Migrant Trail: No More Walls, No More Deaths Farrah Hassen An Interview with Syria's Ambassador to the US, Dr. Imad Moustapha Greg Moses The Real Mission of the Uniformed Ghost at the Border Nicole Colson "There's No Hope at Gitmo" John Scagliotti How MoveOn Wastes Its Donors' Money Mokhiber / Weissmann Corporate Democrats   June 15, 2006 Kathy Kelly Look Them in the Eye: Honest Abe and the Residents of Ramadi Norman Solomon Premature Triangulation: Hillary's Big Problem Ron Jacobs Publicity Stunts as Public Policy Sam Bahour Cover Up on Gaza Beach Ramzy Baroud Palestine on the Brink CounterPunch Wire Death Squads at Colombia's Universities Gabriel Kolko Why a Global Economic Deluge Looms Website of the Day Antje Duvekot: Music You've Been Waiting Years to Hear   June 14, 2006 Nicole Colson "They Want the Fear Level at a High Pitch": An Interview with Lawyer Lynne Stewart Jonathan Cook Israeli Law and Order Joseph Schechla Bulldozing Palestine: an Open Letter to Caterpillar, Inc. Michael Carmichael Bolton at Oxford: Jeered and Taunted Evelyn Pringle Karl and George, the Teflon Partnership Ward Churchill My Trial By Media: Turning Quibbles Over Footnotes into Felonies Rev. William E. Alberts Decoding the Coders of Christ: Jesus the Political Insurgent? Website of the Day Marines Iraq Snuff Film   June 13, 2006 Medea Benjamin Take Back America Suppresses Anti-War Dissenters at HRC Speech Anthony Alessandrini The Evil of Banality: the General, the New York Times and the Gitmo Suicides Paul D'Amato The Meaning of Haditha Dave Lindorff The Strange Death of Zarqawi: Was He Killed So He Wouldn't Talk? John Ross Elections and the World Cup: If Team Mexico Advances, Will Anyone Show Up to Vote for Lopez Obrador? Gabriel Garcia Venezuela and Drug Trafficking: Bush Bashes Chavez Despite Positive Results Hilton Obenzinger DIvestment is a Stand for Equality in Israel Yitzhak Laor The Secret of Authority Juan Antonio Ocasio Rivera Puerto Rico at the UN Jennifer Van Bergen The Story Behind Zarqawi's Death: What's the Legality of the Assassination? Website of the Day Paul Wright: a Real American Freedom Fighter   June 12, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Armageddon Wish: a Final End to History? Patrick Cockburn The US Already Misses Zarqawi Mike Marqusee Rebranding a Team: English Nationalism and the World Cup Lee Sustar "I Never Had the American Dream:" Left with No Future by GM and Delphi Robert Fisk Has Racism Invaded Canada? Michael J. Smith Enter Sandman; Exit Kosland Felice Pace NPR's Warped Covereage of the MIddle East Jennifer Loewenstein Setting the Record Straight on Hamas Website of the Day Our Way Home   June 10 / 11, 2006 Weekend Edition Robert Fisk Zarqawi's End is not a Famous Victory Diane Christian Zarqawi's Face Joe Allen The American Way of Atrocities: Marine Corps' Killer Virtues Ralph Nader Let Us All Praise the Dixie Chicks Fred Gardner Tylenol Toxicity Terror Dave Lindorff Nothing New About Haditha Dave Zirin / John Cox Will Racism Spoil the World Cup? Dennis Perrin Death is Patriotic: Necro-Porn, Live on CNN Greg Moses Militarizing the Border: Why Operation Jump Start Worries Me John Chuckman Terror in Toronto or Tempest in a Teapot? Michael J. Smith Babes in Kosland: Dem Blogfest, Day Two Roger Burbach Bachelet in DC: Chilean President Refuses to Back Down to Bush Ira Moskowitz Israeli Court Finds Mad-Dog US Prof Libeled CounterPuncher Neve Gordon Sam Bahour The Gaza Air Strikes: Begging for a Response Seth Sandronsky Grocery Chains and Bush's Ownership Society: Profits Fall, Stores Close Michael Berg A Father's Day Message: Both Parties Have Betrayed America Kirsten Roberts Desmond Dekker and the Music of the Shantytowns Ron Jacobs Who's Fooling Who? Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Jones, Davies, Engel and Louise Website of the Weekend Miles and Trane, So What?

July 21, 2006 The Economics of Creative Destruction The Iraq War is a Huge Success By ASEEM SHRIVASTAVA “If he that shared the danger enjoyed the profit, and, after bleeding in the battle, grew rich by the victory, he might show his gains without envy. But, at the conclusion of a ten years' war, how are we recompensed for the death of multitudes, and the expense of millions, but by contemplating the sudden glories of paymasters and agents, contractors and commissaries, whose equipages shine like meteors, and whose palaces rise like exhalations! “These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing rich, as their country is impoverished; they rejoice, when obstinacy or ambition adds another year to slaughter and devastation; and laugh, from their desks, at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to figure, and cipher to cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new armament, and computing the profits of a siege or tempest.” Samuel Johnson The secret of capitalist success, the great economist Joseph Schumpeter famously argued, is “creative destruction”. The dynamics of capitalist competition generate technological innovations at a rapid clip, each superior method causing the obsolescence of prevailing techniques, old machines giving way to new in a ceaseless cycle of growth and prosperity. Imperialistic wars, Schumpeter believed, were signs of atavism, harking back to humanity’s more anachronistic, primitive impulses. However, he failed to see that such wars brought forth another form of creative destruction which capitalism finds most handy in its onward march. The reigning view among most critics of the war on Iraq is that it has been a fiasco. No weapons of mass destruction were found, nor any link with the terrorists who plotted 9 -- 11. Most importantly, more than 3 years after Bush declared the end of the war, the insurgency in Iraq is stronger than ever. Undeclared civil war is threatening to break up the country. Hundreds of thousands of innocents may have been murdered by the American invasion, in addition to the deaths of over 2500 US soldiers, and the end is not in sight. So, it has become a commonplace to suggest that the whole enterprise has been a disaster from all possible points of view. This is a fundamentally mistaken view, a victim of the red herrings thrown at the public by Washington warlords and their ideologues. Is there reason to believe that the war, far from being a disaster, has actually proceeded quite well from Washington’s point of view? That the view that the war has been a fiasco is merely a convenient smokescreen of innocence helpful to keep in check public perceptions of the monstrous crimes of leaders in Washington and London? First, and easily forgotten, the obvious success of the Iraq adventure has been to get rid of that rotten dictator Saddam Hussein. Democracy has dawned on an Islamic land. Thanks to American blessings, people can now elect their own representatives to govern them, even if they get their heads blown off every now and then when they step on to the streets. Looking beyond that, however, there are some sobering facts. Let’s begin with the lessons history teaches. The dominant view is that the Vietnam War was lost by the US. It was driven out of Vietnam. 58,000 Americans died in the war, apart from the millions of Indo -- Chinese. All this may be true. However, if you look at it from the perspective of American corporate elites, rather than from the perspective of the majority of Americans, Washington succeeded in its primary goal, which was to prevent an alternative model of independent Third World development (something like what Cuba has tried and Venezuela is trying these days) from taking root. Vietnam was not allowed to set an example which might have generated a domino effect across the developing world, much to the loss of the United States, which would have become a less indispensable nation. True to American plans, Vietnam is an open -- market economy today, dependent on a globalized economy led by the US. Moreover, the military spending on the Vietnam War consolidated the policy framework of Military Keynesianism which had been learnt to be of great economic use since the days of World War II. Key to this approach is the enrichment of weapons manufacturers and reconstruction  industries who have an assured market. The military purchases are deficit -- financed by the Federal government at the cost of the tax -- paying public. Reconstruction costs are levied on the tax -- paying public of the destroyed nation. Weapons dealers like Lockheed -- Martin and United Technologies got handsome contracts from the Pentagon. Companies like Kellogg, Brown and Root and The Louis Berger Group (both invited to bid for reconstruction contracts in Iraq) got plenty of business when they were asked to build harbors, roads, bridges, airports and military bases in the period of post -- war reconstruction in Vietnam. The hidden agenda of the US government in Iraq has been three -- fold. Firstly, to take control of the world’s second largest oil reserves, thereby seizing one of the key oil spigots of competitors like Japan, China and the EU. Secondly, to prevent the dollar -- based world oil market from transacting in Euros, something Iran, Iraq and Venezuela were attempting since 2002, when the Euro was launched. Thirdly, the establishment of permanent US military bases in the strategic heart of the world. (The US has built the world’s largest embassy – employing 5000 people – in Baghdad). In all three respects, the war has been a resounding success. US oil companies have taken charge of Iraqi oil. In the future it is through them that Japan, China, EU and any other competitors will have to buy oil from the region, something that gives the US formidable leverage. The oil market continues to transact in dollars, fragile as it is as a global reserve currency. Iranian experiments with the Euro Bourse have not taken off. The war has also achieved some other remarkable, unmentionable goals for Washington. Firstly, it has managed to demonstrate the “credibility” of its military intentions of gaining full -- spectrum dominance in the post Cold War world. It has been, as one journalist puts it, a successful “global experiment in behaviour modification.” Secondly, the war industry has made huge profits as military orders have grown, Bush repeatedly asking Congress for more, almost $ 0.3 trillion having already been spent on the war. Nobel -- Laureate Joseph Stiglitz estimates the war to cost (and the weapons manufacturers to get) between $1 and 2 trillion over the next several years. Thirdly, firms from the reconstruction industry have been having a field day, the costs of reconstruction (which are effectively benefits for the US corporations, at the expense of the Iraqi public: “we destroy, we rebuild, you pay”) are estimated at somewhere between $10 and $60 billion over the next several years, most of it to be levied – with typically imperial justice – on the tax -- paying public of Iraq, the punishment for enduring a CIA -- installed dictator for decades. The Economist had described Iraq sometime back as “a capitalist dream.” Senator John McCain had called it “a huge pot of honey that’s attracting a lot of flies.” The Halliburtons and the Bechtels, as much as venture capitalists have been dipping greedily into the pot for sometime already, their access cleared and guarded by the US military. After a long period  of economic seclusion under Saddam Hussein, followed by the decade of UN sanctions that strangled the country, the resources, the markets and the labor of the country have been put at the disposal of “the international community” (that is, Americans, occasionally including the British). Among those who know, the accepted view is that Iraq has suffered two assaults, the military and the corporate , both filling the coffers of Washington’s patron corporations at the expense of epic human misery. Reviewing the enormous corruption and the no -- bid contracts handed out to companies like Halliburton and Bechtel, The Boston Globe recently suggested that the American involvement “amounts to two invasions. First the bombs. Then the banks. This is robbery, not reconstruction.” To add insult to these injuries, all US oil corporations operating in Iraq have been granted total legal immunity from prosecution for any crime -- involving labor, human rights or environmental law or any other violations -- under an Executive Order issued by the President a few years ago. For all that the “international community” cares about human rights and the environment, Exxon -- Mobil or Chevron -- Texaco could use slave labor or spill their oil off the coast of Basra without having to worry about any sort of prosecution whatsoever. Rule of law in the new, democratic Iraq. In yet another, sinister, sense the war has been a remarkable success from Washington’s angle. It may succeed in dividing forever the three main communities in Iraq, Shia, Sunni and Kurds, enough to sustain the justification for a permanent US military presence in the country. Keeping a devastated nation on the brink of chaos may be part of a more or less conscious (if obviously secret) strategy to secure the long -- term benefits of military and economic occupation. This is an old -- divide and rule -- tactic of colonial powers, aimed at making the country ungovernable from within. The Americans have learnt it from the British. The logic was often given in the case of Hindus and Muslims in India by the British in the early part of the last century, Churchill always eager to point out that Indians will not be able to govern themselves in the absence of the British. All imperial powers are devilishly driven to create vacuums which they alone can occupy. Other little successes have been notched up. Security corporations  -- with their hired mercenaries from all over the world -- have been used on an unprecedented scale. Poor young men from regions as far afield as the Far East, South Asia and Central America have been tempted with dollars and possibilities of US citizenship to fight white men’s wars. The racism and the cowardice are old. The corporate technique is new. Global security is one of the fastest growing industries today. It is already $100 billion in size and growing at 7 -- 8% annually, expected to double in size by 2010. From Washington’s point of view, perhaps the most significant success of the Iraq venture is that the experiment with the two-pronged --destroy and reconstruct   --  approach  to enriching US corporations has worked with even greater success than in Vietnam. Now this cash -- generating capitalist module can be deployed with as much profit elsewhere. Iran? Venezuela? The more oil the country has, the better from the US point of view. Neither the loss of lives, American or otherwise, nor the unprecedented fiscal crisis in Washington is going to stop the empire from enlarging the scope and scale of its global operations. No imperial overstretch yet, it seems. The US Federal Reserve can be, literally, banked on to print the necessary currency to finance any number of wars – and get the American and world public to pay for them. A great, but little -- known secret about the Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, is that it is ultimately owned and controlled by shareholders belonging to large, private commercial banks (several of them non -- American) like Lehmann Brothers and Rothschilds. So while private bankers make huge amounts of money by merely printing and lending it to the government, the ignorant tax -- paying public must keep footing the bill of war expenses: a long -- standing, built -- in mechanism for organized graft. Loss of American lives can be minimized – and the dreaded Vietnam syndrome be avoided – by using the hired guns of security corporations from other countries, whose deaths do not even have to be reported. Money for more wars can be borrowed from East Asians and others too, who don’t look like they are going to stop their purchase of US Treasury bonds anytime soon.  The day is not far when, as the American historian Theodore Roszak has recently suggested: “The American imperium becomes a private, for profit, off -- the -- shelf, regime -- change industry. There will be firms standing ready to fight the wars, organize the occupation that follows, rebuild the ruined infrastructure that results from the wars, recruit new governments, and manage the post -- war economy. There may even be private educational services hired to train the conquered population in the rudiments of high -- consumption democracy, and hoards the evangelical true believers eager to save heathen souls from damnation.” Aseem Shrivastava can be reached at aseem62@yahoo.com.

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