Iraq now

The events of the last few days in Iraq were put in context on two PBS programs Friday. TV and press coverage of the killing of American mercenaries and display of their burned and dismembered bodies to cheering crowds in Fallujah has emphasized that city as an exception, the stronghold of Saddam sympathizers. But Charlie Rose interviewed two reporters in Iraq from establishment publications, and got a different view. These attacks, said Jon Anderson of the New Yorker, indicate "less a change in Iraq than in American perception of Iraq." John Burns of the New York Times agreed, and added that while most Iraqis don't participate, this is "a war of national resistance" in intent and scope.

They agreed that Fallujah is the sanctuary of the most intense resistance and aggressive violence, and that it will take a massive effort to control it, similar to Israeli military control of Palestine. But they insisted that even that would not end the insurgencies. Burns said that American officials in Iraq may believe this is an isolated instance (we heard one on TV right after the attack attributing it to a few folks who "don't get it") but they are "in denial" if they think the situation is soluble before the hand-over of power on July 1.

Deborah Amos, who has been covering the region since the early 1980s, told Bill Moyers that at best the hand-over will be cosmetic. The occupation is already turning over government agencies, like health and education, to Iraqi control. But the occupation headquarters is going to become the American Embassy---the largest anywhere in the world---and American "advisors" and a hundred thousand American troops will remain after July.

The killing of mercenaries-though no one calls them that (they usually called "security guards" or "private sector" employees)---highlights their presence in Iraq, largely ignored by U.S. media until now. Not even the Pentagon (CBS Pentagon correspondent David Martin told Charlie Rose) knows how many are there. But it seems that the Bushie strategy was to try to reduce official U.S. troop levels after July 1, and depend more on a combination of United Nations personnel and these mercenaries. Like the men killed, they are usually ex-military. Stories have surfaced of National Guard troops returning home from Iraq, where their finances are in ruin and their government pay is slow arriving, but where they are greeted by recruiters for private companies offering them at least double the money the government paid them, to return to Iraq as mercenaries.

The killings in Fallujah may have wrecked this plan. Private companies and the UN may not be eager to jump into situations like this. So even if there is a photogenic hand-over in July, there are elections supposedly scheduled for January. There will be plenty of time for chaos between.

John Dean of Watergate fame was also interviewed on Moyers' NOW, and he maintains in his new book that Bush II has committed impeachable offenses in knowingly lying to Congress in order to invade Iraq. He said that not even Nixon was so thoroughly committed to secrecy as Bush. He sees this secrecy as the other half of the Bush refusal to listen to allies or experts or anyone outside the inner circle of true believers, and the perceived base of the party---the rich and the Rabid Right.

All this and much more that is emerging about pre-9-11, is accelerating to a point that the political issues will have to be ratcheted up in order to keep up with reality. The Democrats are going to have to start talking very soon about the phony hand-over of power in Iraq, and it's going to have to be made clear to the American public---apparently reluctant so far to dump Bush---that if Bush is re-elected, the country faces the prospect of another presidential impeachment within a year of his re-Inauguration.

Lies and body bags. The tragedies multiply and begin to interact. In the meantime the federal deficit caused by the Bush tax cut and its warfare is driving down the U.S. dollar, inspiring OPEC to cut oil production so prices will rise and they get more dollars to make up for the value lost. To weak pro forma objections from the Bushies, and their generations of alliance with the Saudi ruling family.

Ordinary citizens pay for it, naturally, at the gas pump. Highlighting also the fact that decades during which we could have been preparing for the inevitable oil and energy crisis, as well as weakening if not forestalling global heating and the climate crisis---a crisis that in its various manifestations could very well make Iraq look like a weekend getaway---have all gone by in a haze of SUV commercials.

Iraq now. Pay later.

The Dash Report: The Cosmos
Week in Review

MORGAN DASH

We're short a brother for this week's report. Gabriel has lit out for
parts unknown. He just couldn't take it anymore. Who can blame him? The Bushies ads against Kerry seem to be working in the battleground states. It's so depressing to realize that all you still have to do is gloss up some clichés, like "liberal," "raise your taxes," "flip-flop" and those sheep in voters' clothing will fall for it. I may soon follow him myself.

PHINEAS DASH
The short term news is not all bad. Kerry's positives are down and negatives up in those states, but not by that much. Nationally, Kerry still has a slight lead. The electoral vote outlook is also pretty good. And Kerry has been relatively inactive-he hasn't even begun to hammer away on his best issues.

THERON DASH
What's driving me crazy is Nader. There's no doubt that he's articulate on the issues, and that Dems could use some of his trenchant analysis and nerve. I heard him recently and it's not a big wonder to me why people listen-he can be very persuasive, even on his latest tack of saying he's actually helping Democrats defeat Bush. But the best you can say is that it's a very dangerous strategy. All the numbers in all the polls show that Nader is still the margin of victory for Bush. Without him, Kerry wins.

CHRISTOPHER DASH
No wonder he's getting such respect from Republicans and conservatives. That Tucker Carlson on CNN was just so transparent in his attempt to fawn over him and egg him on to criticizing Kerry.

THERON DASH
Nader is meeting with Kerry this month, and though I hoped for some sort of deal---like Nader at least would not put himself on the ballot in the battleground states---I'm in complete despair about it now. It looks like the 2000 election will be a recurring nightmare. Who's going to cheer me up?

MORGAN
Wish I could. I think what finally got to Gabriel was the sneaking
suspicion that even if Kerry gets elected, he's not going to be able
to do much. The rabid right and the self-entitled Bush Lite Elite have no conscience, they don't believe in elections or governing, they don't care about the country or its people, and they certainly
don't care about the world or the planet. They'll just keep phonying up hate and conflict, and seizing power by whatever means necessary.

PHINEAS
Well, if you're looking for reasons to despair, I'll tell you what's getting to me. All this controversy over 9-11 and Iraq may be political dynamite, though we don't yet know whose face it's going to explode in. But I suspect the Bushies have one truly terrible advantage: in the end they don't fear an apocalypse, they welcome it. The rabid religious right that buys those Rapture novels and lines up for the Mel Gibson S&M movie truly believe in this imminent final battle of good against evil, and that they will be saved-and only they will be saved, and given eternal happiness.

That's why the most conservative Christians are in a working alliance with the most right wing Jews in Israel to drive out the Palestinians, so their interpretation of the apocalyptic prophesies can be fulfilled to the letter, specifically the conditions for the Second Coming. Of course, those same Jews would then be damned if they didn't convert, but it's an unholy alliance that works for them now.

So the Bushies can play their power games so they'll be comfortably rich while they wait for Apocalypse, and they'll use constant warfare to keep politics on the level of adrenelin---which is also their strategy in advertising, and that's all advertising is, pushing the glandular buttons. But they don't worry about the cost of conflict, they don't worry that they're pushing billions of people and all existing lifeforms on the planet closer to the end of it all---because that's what they are waiting for. They want it. And judging from the barbarism in Iraq, they're well on the way. Only it's the battle between two sides with the same self-delusion that they are the Good, which of course makes them both Evil.

MORGAN
Thank you, Mr. Sunshine. No wonder I need to spend most of my
day immersed in science fiction. Give me a galaxy far far away.
Any other items to brighten up the day?

CHRISTOPHER
Well, Wired Magazine says that all the studies so far of the electronic voting systems that will be used in 2004 show that they are flawed and can be subverted and misused, some pretty easily. And there are no studies showing they will work. But election officials are sticking with them anyway.

THERON
So between Nader and well-placed computer viruses, we're moving right along to the apocalypse. I hope Gabriel has lots of room.

PHINEAS
Let's fight the good fight first. Then we can all retire to somewhere
with health care.
MORGAN
Now that's science fiction.