Cassandra'a Day

A year ago, I was amongst those who set their stalls out against the American and British war in Iraq. I said that Saddam Hussein was an odious man and deserved to be overthrown, but that war was not the way to do it. I suggested that it could mark the beginning of the end for the American hegemony and possibly herald the start of the Chinese century.

To some degree, this was a matter of moral outrage that, inevitably, many innocent people would get killed and maimed and left homeless. Like many, I was particularly incensed that this war seemed to be waged at the behest of Texan and Californian billionaires eager to get their filthies on Iraqi oil and reconstruction projects.
But there was also the sense that this is how empires end, by over-reaching themselves and getting bogged down in a swamp of their own making.
The early history of that war gave the lie to Cassandras like me. The Americans and the British swept across Iraq. Yes, there was resistance, but it was shambolic and incidental. The forecast resistance crumbled in the face of the Allies’ shock and awe tactics.
And pretty awesome they were too. Night by night we got ring-side seats and reports from the ‘embedded’ media.
There were triumphalist broadcasts, as when the Brits took Basra and their embedded reporters old us of how savvy they were and how their experience in Northern Ireland had prepared them for a bleak assignment like this.
In particular, they gloated about how, as a result of having dealt with hostile natives in Northern Ireland, the British army knew to shed their helmets at the first opportunity and patrol in berets. This, we were told, put the wary natives at their ease. That this also elevated the Brits above the boot-heavy and block-headed Yanks was unexpressed, but clearly understood.
And so it went. Resistance collapsed. In the end, Saddam was captured. “Ladies and gentlemen, we got him”. Game set and…
Well, not quite. Because, even as Saddam was flushed from his bunker, others were organising to fight. Whoever they were, they drew blood, and plenty of it.
Saddam loyalists, al-Qaeda, Shi’ite extremists, Sunni radicals… who knew? Maybe all of them. And they started to pick off the invaders and anyone associated with them, singly and in groups, by remote-controlled bombs and suicide attacks and full-frontal assaults and fire-fights.
Not good, not good at all. And it isn’t just in the so-called Sunni triangle where Saddam came from. No, they’ve trouble in Shi’ite Najaf and in Basra in the south.
In Fallujah, more than 600 people were killed the other week as the US decided they had to impose control.
It hasn’t got any better. Even as Iraq is supposed to be handed over to the puppets, it’s clear that the war hasn’t gone away. The US casualties are mounting as fast as they did in Vietnam. Dozens of contractors have been killed. As for kidnappings, you name ’em, they’ve been seized – Chinese, Japanese, Italians, the lot.
Masked gunmen are attacking the Americans and British and threatening anyone associated with them. It’s a re-run of Beirut a generation ago.
And the Cassandras are now reminding the Americans and British of what they said a year ago, that Iraq wasn’t going to be a cakewalk, and that they should move with more circumspection.
They don’t want to know any more now than they did then, even as the whole enterprise falls apart in their hands. There was a better way, but they only knew the one way…
Indeed, Bush has gone further than even the pessimists feared – he’s rowed in behind the Israeli government’s decision to leave Gaza and annex part of the West Bank.
It’s a unilateral solution to the Palestinian question that disregards completely the views of the Palestinians. And Israeli Prime Minister Sharon has said openly that the assassination of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is on the agenda.
Are these people utterly crazy? If there was ever any chance of persuading Arabs and Muslims that the West isn’t perpetrating a final solution, it’s probably gone now, even though few of us agree with the Haliburton-Israeli plan…
I’m sure that Tony Blair is livid. After all, the Bush regime has allied itself with the one Middle Eastern power that is known to be in possession of weapons of mass destruction and has a long track record of attacking neighbouring countries – Israel!
Israel has routinely assassinated opponents, same as Saddam. And it has even annexed parts of other countries (Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt) which is a lot more than Saddam ever did.
These people believe in some afterlife… like the suicide bombers. But, unlike the suicide bombers, who sacrifice themselves, the Bush and Sharon administrations are preparing to sacrifice everyone else.
It will be worse before it is better.
The children of Abraham fall out like dogs. The Dark Ages beckon. Meanwhile, Bertie opens up to China… Might be a smart move. b
The Hog