Why they pretend Iraq is sovereign…

2004-07-09

Richard Moore

Friends,

Several of you have sent in follow-up comments to the last two 'dialog' 
postings. Those will be posted tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'd like to say a few things
about the recent transfer of pseudo-sovereignty to Iraq.

The transfer of sovereignty is so obviously fraudulent that one almost wonders 
why there are bothering with the charade. It is clear to everyone that the 
Pentagon continues to run the country. Allawi is a Ba'athist who is closely 
connected to the CIA--his installation is basically a replay of the installation
of Saddam. Some commentators have referred to him as "Saddam lite". His first 
act in office has been to declare martial law. The effect of this decree is to 
legitimize the continued arbitrary actions of the U.S. military, given that 
Allawi's own security forces have little stomach for fighting. One puppet 
dictator has been replaced by another. And if the new one ceases to be a good 
puppet, he can be indicted for the crimes he will be carrying out on behalf of 
the CIA--just like Saddam and Noriega were before him.

But despite all this obvious fraud, the formal transfer of sovereignty does 
succeed in changing the propaganda climate to the benefit of the U.S. 
Administration. Before the transfer, we had a situation where the U.S. was 
pretending that it was liberating Iraq, and every act of insurgency gave the lie
to that pretense. Now that Iraq pretends to be sovereign, every act of 
insurgency can be seen as evidence that the government needs American support to
suppress "the terrorists".  The actual situation--a people resisting an 
occupying aggressor--has not changed one bit. But the propaganda coming out of 
the White House and the mainstream media will make more sense, will seem less 
self-contradictory. The basic purpose of the pseudo transfer is to legitimize 
escalation of the war against the Iraqi people.

yours,
rkm
http://cyberjournal.org