Friday, December 17, 2004


From an excellent (as usual) article by Pepe Escobar on neocon plans for the world ( http://www.uruknet.info/?p=8186 ):

"The road to Tehran starts both in Kabul and Baghdad. This requires examination of the Afghan 'model' and the Iraqi 'model'.

Afghanistan's new democracy rests on the shoulder of the world's most expensive mayor (US$1.6 billion a month and counting), Hamid Karzai, who barely controls downtown Kabul protected by 200 American bodyguards, 17,000 American troops and a North Atlantic Treaty Organization contingent. Without all this heavy metal, Karzai would never last. The country is essentially ruled by the Tajiks and Uzbeks of the former Northern Alliance - who now control most of the world's supply of heroin - powerful regional warlords and the Taliban (in the south and southeast). So much for Afghan 'democracy'.

As for the Iraqi 'model', the crucial point is that the Americans managed to turn Iraq into a replica of Palestine - the same ghastly litany of occupation, suicide bombings, streams of refugees and death and destruction. Not only was the Iraq war entirely based on neo-con lies: these lies led, among other disasters, to Iraq's infrastructure being completely destroyed and the US alienating the Muslim world. Fallujah and Baghdad are replicas of Gaza and the West Bank."

The fact that Afghanistan is an unmitigated disaster can't be stressed enough, as I note that even critics of the war on Iraq are using their approval of what happened to Afghanistan to prove that they are real manly Americans and not just commie pinko fags who hate war. I've even read that it was necessary to attack Afghanistan to eliminate bin Laden's training camps, which is funny if you read Aukai Collins' account of what a joke these camps actually were, and even funnier if you realize that all the American attack did was spread the al Qaeda fighters throughout the world. In the long run, the attack on Afghanistan, based on the completely bogus excuse of going after bin Laden, will probably be seen as a bigger mistake than the attack on Iraq. For one thing, it made the attack on Iraq, and all subsequent neocon attacks, intellectually possible. The neocons and their enablers justified the attack on Afghanistan on the need to punish bin Laden, justified the attack on Iraq on the allegations that Saddam was a bin Laden ally and was also behind 9-11, are setting up to justify the attack on Syria based on its alleged help for the Iraqi resistance, will use the same argument to justify the attack on Iran, and so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. To see how grim it is going to get, read Escobar's conclusion:

"With the American military in its current state, Bush and the neo-cons cannot possibly reshape the Middle East to suit the neo-con/Likud agenda. Washington is faced with two options. It could restore the draft - provoking a minor social earthquake in the US. Or it could develop - and deploy - tactical nuclear weapons, mini-nukes. Fallujah - flattened by 'conventional' means - was just a test. On the road to Damascus, the road to Tehran, the road to Riyadh, the neo-cons would be much more tempted to go nuclear."

Since there appear to be absolutely no political constraints on Bush and the neocons whatsoever, I suspect that they will have a draft and go nuclear.