Invasion anniversaryMore of the same in Iraq and elsewhere [Archives:2005/826/Opinion]

March 20th marks the second anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. The results of the invasion so far have not yielded the glowing scenario of a peaceful and prosperous Iraq and the democratic transformation envisioned is far from being put into an institutionalized framework.

Let us go back a little to the eve of the invasion, when the United States was laying out its justifications for deciding to go it alone in Iraq, and the frightening picture the Bush administration was painting about what would happen if action was not immediately taken. Notwithstanding all the skepticism that was raised about the George W. Bush administration's claims and assertions about the threat that Iraq under Saddam was posing to the world, the Bush administration made it inevitable that the only way to remove that threat was by a unilateral invasion to topple the regime that was drawing up Armageddon for the world.

Even when the professionals in the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency were quite convincing of their assessments of the poor credibility of the White House claims about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (existing and in the drawing board), the US insisted that it knew better.

First of all the rather quick speed of the “War” immediately threw most of the claims out the window. That in itself should have raised many doubts about the credibility of the Bush administration, in general and not just in Iraq, especially in the United States, which one was under the assumption that its leaders are indeed accountable for any efforts to mislead the American citizens.

The rest of the world already had doubts well before the invasion. Yet surprisingly, the spurious claims and intentional deceptions were allowed to be forgotten, as theatrics sought to convince the American people that it “was worth it” and the effort made “Americans at home secure”.

When actual further investigations after the invasion revealed the absence of any WMD, existing or in the drawing boards of the fallen regime of Saddam Hussein, still the Bush administration escaped accountability for such a costly misadventure and the ill-conceived plans to deal with its aftermath. To many in the world, even to those who do not enjoy democratic venues, this seemed puzzling, since America was viewed as the shining beacon of sound governance, transparency and accountability.

For many of us, outside the United States, the only hope we could hang on to was that indeed there were many Americans, who shared our feelings and were actually more outspoken about their Government's contempt of American principles of transparency and accountability.

Thanks to the internet, there was a substantial number of channels, by which these Americans expressed their protest against this extreme turn of political interaction in the United States. For many observers, outside the US, the Presidential Elections of 2004 were bound to correct this odd turn of political developments towards the extreme right in the United States.

After all, American history has shown that within the American constitutional framework and institutional set up of the political process, America always managed to find its way out of any non-standard deviation. Moreover, the American people were expected not to fall for deception and to be intentionally mislead more than once. But then again could they be? They were again made to forget that the power ultimately was in their hands and for some inexplicable reason, the Democratic Party was ill prepared to harness the American people towards bringing their country back in line with the fundamentals upon which America was established and in line with the beliefs of true freedom-loving people (not of the Israeli genre) throughout the world.

In fact, the Bush clique was far better prepared to meet any strategy by the Democrats that would have stood in their way of getting their President to carry on for a second term of more of the same deceit. Even with the obvious messy situation that has evolved in Iraq, and with the clear evidence of repressive tactics characterizing the “War on Terror”, the occupation of Iraq and the ongoing chaos in Afghanistan, the Bush Administration came back, as if the American people (a little more than half of them anyway) were not around through all the calamities that Bush has gotten away with throughout his First Term.

On the contrary, as Bush proceeded with his second term, there was no reason not to go on with the theatrics and the deceptions. He says it proudly that the American people have given him the mandate to carry on with the agenda his clique has been preparing for now for two decades, along with their Zionist mentors and corporate bosses. So, with the Afghani and Iraqi stage far from stabilized, the second anniversary has not even been reached and the Bush Administration is already singing its theme of carrying on their liberation to other parts of the world, sometimes under the guise of containing Iran's possible nuclear armament, or liberating the Arabs from their dictators.

But with America so far to the right, is it qualified to bring on the liberation of the world, when many of its own people have elected to emigrate to Canada after loosing hope in their own chances of improvement to more reasonable and responsible governance? What is apparent is the Bush Administration determination to spread the neo-con agenda to the rest of the world. The nominations of John Bolton as US Ambassador to the United Nations and Paul Wolfowitz as Chairman of the World Bank, who are known as being fervent architects of the Iraqi quagmire, are a clear indication of how the Bush Administration has reasons to celebrate its success in getting its way, right or wrong over the last two years.

This is what the Christian Science Monitor had to say about these nominations: “The nomination (Wolfowitz) follows last week's naming of John Bolton as US Ambassador to the United Nations, another nomination seen by many as going against the grain of Bush administration efforts to smooth relations with the rest of the world after the Iraq war. Calling the Wolfowitz nomination “a slap in the face” to Europe and a cold shower on the good feelings left by Bush's recent trip to Europe, one European diplomat said, “These two nominations portend a not very good time ahead.”

What's in store for the next two years? Only God knows!
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[archive-e:826-v:13-y:2005-d:2005-03-21-p:opinion]