Gary Kamiya over at Salon, writes a long review of George Packer’s new book, “The Assassins Gate” about the U.S. failure in Iraq.
Packer is a “liberal hawk,” one of those who believe that the U.S. should use military power to break the back of dictators in the name of human rights. He supported the war in Iraq, but later became disllusioned with it.
Packer’s main thesis, according to Kamiya, is that the war was cooked up by a bunch of Jewish neo-cons who strongly supported Israel. They believed that taking out Saddam would allow Israel to annex the West Bank, the Palestinians to take over Jordan, and the Hasemites to rule Iraq along with por-Israel, pro-U.S. Shiites like Ahmad Chalabi.
Even though Packer didn’t trust the Bush neo-cons he believed the cause of freeing the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator was a worthy one. It was the criminal lack of planning by the neo-cons that caused the war effort to ultimately fail.
Liberals are often branded as “naive” by conservative critics. So picking apart the ridiculous ideas of the neo-cons, particularly in light of the disasterous results of the Iraq misadventure, must give a sense of pleasure to liberals like Packer, and for that matter Kamiya. But the fact is, that Packer and Kamiya are just as naive.
Their “liberal” world-view is based in a strong faith in the intrinsic goodness of the United States and the value of capitalism. They are akin to the old-guard Marxists who kept the faith in “pure” communism, despite the excesses of Lenin and Stalin. What they fail to see is the corruption of the system as a whole.
Bush & Co did not go to war because of their faith in the neo-con agenda. Perhaps the simple-minded Bush bought into it, but Cheney and Rumsfeld certainly didn’t. The neo-cons provided a useful intellectual and “moral” cover to the real reasons behind the war, and a successful one at that. Even now, liberals like Packer, Kamiya and Tom Friedman still put forth the absurd notion that “if only” we had a “competent” liberal in power, the war in Iraq would have been a great success.
The war in Iraq is about preserving U.S. interests in the Middle East, and U.S. interests means corporate interest, not Israel’s hold on the West Bank. It is no coincidence that all the neo-cons are gone from the administration, but Cheney and Rumsfeld remain. The former have served their purpose and are no longer needed.
What the liberals don’t want to admit, because it would shatter their basic illusions about the United States, is that from the perspective of Bush & Co the war in Iraq is a resounding success. Despite the insurgency, the U.S. is in control of the country. Corporate interests have profited mightily. The suffering of the Iraqi people, the devastating tragedy of bereaved families and the huge tax burden of the war don’t touch Bush & Co in anyway. They are immune from all that and their crony corporate capitalist interests are well-served. Katrina just proves the point – great human suffering serves as yet another gravy train for Bush & Co.
Even the lack of planning before the war, which Packer attributes to the neo-cons being afraid planning would get in the way of getting the war off the ground, is really about Bush & Co. interests. Helping the Iraqi people rebuild their country is a cost, not a benefit. From the perspective of Bush & Co. even a low-level insurgency is not a bad thing. It is well-known that they did plan the most important part before the war – namely where permanent U.S. bases would be found and how the oil fields might be protected.
If liberals were so concerned with human rights and suffering around the world, they would be working hard to roll back so-called “intellectual property” laws and free trade agreements which are far more destructive to poor people than any petty dictator that may or may not be in power in their impoverished country. And for the most part, these petty dictators are just on the payroll of Bush & Co.
Buried in a recent article in the New York Times was an article about how destructive free trade agreements are for Mexican farmers. So why are liberals ardent supporters of free trade? How can liberals support patent laws that protect big Pharma’s interests yet doom millions of people around the world to certain death? When an authoritarian ruler like Chavez thumbs his nose at the U.S. and works for the interests of his country and people, the “liberal” New York Times goes on about how Chavez is using oil money to “bribe” his way into power. Apparently providing adequate health care and education to poor slum dwellers is the worst sort of corruption in “liberal” eyes. And the so-called “Orange” revolution in the Ukraine was portrayed by liberals as some great democracy festival, when in reality it was about whether a leader who supports U.S. or Russian corporate interests would come to power (ibid. the protests in Lebanon). Now that the pretty girls are gone from the streets, the real story gets buried in the back pages, if it gets covered at all.
All the justifications for the war in Iraq were a sham from the get-go. The liberals who bought into this sham have just as much blood on their hands as the neo-cons who also served as tools for real interests behind this war.