Wails of Yanqui Power: Life During Wartime
Jeffrey St Clair, Counterpunch, March 25, 2003

Wars come to be defined as much by the first shot fired as the last. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, unprovoked and unwarranted under international law, started with an illegal attempt at group assassination, as 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles and satellite-guided JDAM bombs pulverized a block of suburban Baghdad. ...

Like the opening night of a bad Hollywood movie, the initial strike on Saddam was propaganda, a two billion dollar demolition job designed to give the impression that Bush was merely interested in annihilating Saddam’s bloodlines, not occupying Iraq and its oil fields. ...

The botched assassination bid on Saddam and his junta was followed up by the much-hyped debut of Shock and Awe. Geared to play before the cameras, missiles and bombs shattered Baghdad, in what looked for all the world like a real-time ad for defense companies, like you might see in some arm dealer convention in Bahrain. This was psychological terrorism at its most pornographic and the western media wallowed in it. ...

It’s becoming impossible for me to watch the war on American television. The reporting isn’t just embedded; it’s in bed with the Pentagon. And CNN is the worst of all. The most useful thing the Iraqis have done so far is to boot the CNN crew out of Baghdad. Now if they could only do something about Aaron Brown. The preening Brown is the most unappetizing anchor on television.

His coy editorializing sets new standards for smugness. Worst of all, he’s done the near impossible by making Christiane Amanpour seem thoughtful. ...

Already the Bush brain trust is playing the blame game. First, the warlords at CentCom suggested that Iraqi resistance was being beefed up by the Russians, which must come as a relief to France. When in doubt, revert to the well-worn script of the Cold War.

Then, and most comically, they accused the Iraqis of cheating. They weren’t wearing uniforms. They suckered troops into ambushes. They holed up in towns and villages. A nation that won its revolution using guerrilla tactics is suddenly prudish about the Iraqis defending their nation the same way.

Now there’s a distant, confused look in Bush’s eyes. Always a tenuous creature in public at best, Bush was clearly rattled by the initial resistance of the Iraqi soldiers. The smirk is still there, but it quivers nervously now as he mumbles his bi-syllabic catch phrases. ...

Still, there’s a reason for hope. The real resistance to this war isn’t to be found with the butchers in Saddam’s Republican Guard, but on the streets of Cairo, Paris, New York, Madrid, London, Nablus, San Francisco and hundreds of other cities and towns around the globe. This is the face of the new internationalism.

Forget the UN, which exposed its impotence by failing to stand up to the bullying of Bush and Blair and pulled its workers out of the war zone.

The globalized and sustained opposition to this war dwarfs the lethal pyrotechnics of Shock and Awe. This is a movement that was born in Seattle, tempered by tear gas, truncheons and the blood of Genoa.

Now it has come of age with a vibrancy and exuberance few could have imagined and none predicted. Instead of abating, the movement grows daily. As Subcomandante Marcos said, “We have arrived.” Deal with it.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:51 pm