Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 360 Editor's Choice: 12
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Glenn queries. Chris answers
[Read the article: Our serious foreign policy geniuses strike again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sardonically, Glenn asks:
Maybe there are other motives besides $$$$$$$$$$$ why people urge on worthless, unjust wars based on falsehoods. Or does it have to be just One Reason that Explains Everything?
Chris Bowers has a pretty good answer. The Iraq occupation is like the BCS system in college football--detested by the masses while serving the interests of the people who set it up.
http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2626
Wide majorities of Americans agree that Iraq has not been worth the costs, that America needs to withdraw its military forces now, and that "victory" is not achievable. America even decided to switch the party in control of the US Congress in order to change direction in Iraq. However, despite all of this, within Washington, D.C. the Iraq war remains popular enough to not just continue American military involvement in it, but to actually significantly increase American military involvement in it for both the short term and the long-term. The whole thing feels kind of like the BCS securing an increased price for its television contract after eight years of continued controversy and contempt from its fans, only with far more deadly consequences.
This is because, like the BCS, the Iraq war actually works quite well for the people who caused it to happen. It works well for private military contractors like Halliburton, General Electric, and Blackwater. It has worked well, and continues to work well, for media outlets seeking higher ratings. It has worked well for neo-conservatives who sought to relocate American military forces out of Saudi Arabia, control a puppet government in Iraq, maintain a forward position against Iran, and increase the American sphere of influence over Middle East oilfields. Perhaps it hasn't worked out quite so well for the two dozen or so Republicans in Congress who lost elections over the war, and it hasn't brought the expected boost to the American oil supply, but generally speaking it has been overwhelmingly productive for the people who brought it to us in the first place, such as the media, the neo-cons, oil companies and military contractors (and some of the military contractors and media companies are one in the same). Notice also how almost no one is still arguing that we should reduce defense spending, like many people were back in the 1990's. Further, by helping to create huge deficits, it has even worked out well for Grover Norquist types who want to drown out non-military government spending.
I would add that the Serious Foreign Policy analysts do not see any good way out, and prefer an unstable quagmire to a full blown civil war. That this outcome seems less likely now, given the reduction in violence following the British withdrawal from the south, and given my belief that the "success" of the escalation has been due to fewer rather than more encounters with opposing forces.
Right now, the occupation serves those who run Washington. And, yes, Glenn, at the heart of much of the way it serves those who run Washington is money. There's also being on the teevee and being Very Important as are all members of the Senate. But, largely, yes I'd say money has a lot (a Lott?) to do with it.
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@Byzantium
[Read the article: Our serious foreign policy geniuses strike again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]atrios has a typically succinct response to your question about having the bomb making it okay:
It must be understood that since our intelligence agencies don't believe Iran has a nuclear weapons program, it also means that they don't know where such a program would be physically located if it did exist. This means that any desires of Dick Cheney and his people to bomb Iran simply involve... bombing the shit out of Iran.
The attack on Iraq was based on pretexts. This stuff about Iran having a nuke was always a pretext. The US is no more threatened by any iranian nuke than it is by a French nuke.
Nukes are brought up because they are the ultimate in scary-sounding threat, not because they actually raise the threat profile.