-=-=-=-=-=-=~What It's All About~=-=-=-=-=-=-
The dynamics of the Iraqi situation are extremely complex. There are many
levels of real and fake agendas, and many layers of deception. It is very
difficult to unravel who is doing what to whom and why. One must start, I
suggest, with the outermost skins of the onion - the most obvious lies -
and gradually peel away layers until one finds what's left at the center.
When we get to the core, we will find that China is more central to the
Desert Storm series than is Saddam.
The easiest layer to strip off and discard is the notion that the US is
motivated by a desire to support a regime of international law and justice
by enforcing UN resolutions.
The US has an ongoing policy of ignoring Israel's violation of
numerous UN Security Council resolutions, and members of the Security
Council are in strong opposition to US policy. With the new Clinton
Doctrine - an explicit declaration that the US will invade whomever it
desires whenever it chooses - it is clearly the US that is the
international pariah, the flouter of international law, the irresponsible
wielder of weapons of mass destruction. The absurdity of US hypocrisy in
this regard has become so extreme that nearly the whole world is able to
see the absence of the Emperor's New Clothes, to appreciate the criminal
nature of the US-sponsored New World Order.
The next layer that can be peeled away is the notion that Clinton's
domestic scandals are the prime motivator - an attempt to bolster Clinton's
public-opinion ratings.
He is simply not that strong politically. His public power base is
fragile, his inflence over Congress is negligible, and it is absurd to
imagine that he could dictate policy to his senior military advisors on a
major geopolitical issue like Iraq. He is in fact laughably weak - he is
reguarly kicked around by the media, his appointments have been rejected by
Congress on trivial grounds, and all of his major "liberal" legislative
packages (health care et al) have been defeated. US policy on Iraq must be
considered a _deep_ policy, not one based on superficial party politics.
The next layer to go in the dustbin is the idea that Iraq is perceived by
the US to be a particularly evil or threatening power, and that "the rules"
must therefore be ignored in suppressing him.
Iraq is very weak militarily, in the aftermath of Desert Storm and
the sanctions, and Saddam is no more evil many other dictators the US
actively supports. The greatest evil going on in the world today may well
be in East Timor, and from the beginning the US has supported that massive
genocide and suppressed news coverage of it. The US is in fact the world's
greatest supporter of dictators, oppression, and genocide, and one must
certainly look elswhere than moral outrage for an explanation of US policy.
Another layer that can go is the theory that Oil Real-Politik is the core
issue for the US.
Certainly the US regularly engages in war in order to maintain
control over global petroleum, and oil considerations are involved in US
policy in Bosnia, East Timor, Iraq, and many other places. But the US goal
with respect to Iraqi oil - namely to keep it off the market so world
prices won't drop further - is already being accomplished without an
invasion.
There are only two layers of the onion which survive scrutiny - precisely
two important US/globalist objectives which would be accomplished by the
Iraqi invasion. The first is the testing of the latest US weapons systems,
and the second is the further establishment of a globalist Elite Strike
Force as the paradigm of international order - ie. the further
establishement of the New World Order and the termination of the principle
of national territorial sovereignty.
As I've argued in previous postings, such a New World Order regime
is simply the military dimension of globalization. As global economic and
social sovereignty is being transferred to fat-cat elite institutions - in
the form of GATT, NAFTA, the WTO, and the IMF - there will obviously need
to be a means of enforcing the implementation of gobalist polices which is
also under elite control. To some extent the NWO has already been
established: in Bosnia and Albania we saw interventions which the world did
not perceive as invasions, but interpreted rather as reasonable policing
actions. In Iraq, the US is simply "pushing the envelope" on this
neo-interventionist globalist policy.
It has been nearly a decade since Desert Storm, and the weapons
tested there are now outdated. I'm attaching below an article by Eric
Margolis which outlines in detail the various new weapons systems and their
test scenarios.
But why does the US feel such an urgent need to upgrade its hi-tech
arsenal? It is already leagues ahead of any challengers to its military
hegemony.
**--> THE ANSWER IS CHINA <--**
Neither fat-cat globalism nor traditional "American interests" wish to
permit a strong nationalistic China to attain Asian military hegemony. And
such hegemony is both the policy which China has signalled and the policy
which it is obviously pursuing with its rapid and intense buildup of
strategic military forces. The US hi-tech arsenal provides a means to
defeat China (or credibly threaten the defeat of China) without resort to
full-scale nuclear war. And to be credible, the arsenal must be both
tested and demonstrated.
When all the layers have been peeled away, it is the US/globalist's China
policy which is behind the Desert War Games, and it is to intimidate China
that the show is being put on. Just as it was America's Soviet containment
intentions that were beind earlier hi-tech weapons tests in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and it was to intimidate the USSR that the tests were carried out
on populated targets. Iraq and its population are expendable pawns, just
as were thousands of Japanese civilians in 1945.
-=-=-=-=-=-=~Revolutionary Potential~=-=-=-=-=-=-
The massive global opposition to US Iraqi policy is very interesting, and
could potentially develop into a significant counter-force to globalization
and the NWO. This opposition is occuring at all levels - it involves
citizen activist groups, civil disobedience, labor groups, and entire
nations (France, China, et al). Continued US intransigence and flouting of
international opinion - though disastrous for the helpless and innocent
Iraqi civilians - may be the factor that pushes global consciousness over
the edge: beyond mere outrage at genocide, and on to genuine revolutionary
consciousness.
As outrage meets intransigence, conscousness expands and becomes
radicalized. This was the pattern in the sixties' civil-rights and
anti-war movements, and it has been the pattern in every revolutionary
movement, including the American, French, and Russian Revolutions.
Opposition to the bombing expands into opposition to the sanctions.
Opposition to US Iraqi policy expands into opposition to high-handed US
actions generally, and the issue of national sovereignty is beginning to be
on the lips of more and more people.
"Sovereignty consciouness" is also being fed by IMF policies in Korea and
by the growing international movement against the MAI (Multilateral
Agreement on Investments). All these developments taken together seem to
be creating a critical mass of anti-globalist, pro-national-sovereignty
sentiment.
I suggest that that the iron is now hot, and that this is an auspious time
for revolutionary ativists to strike. More precisely one should say
COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARIES, for globlization is in fact already a
revolution-in-progress - an elite sponsored revolution - which is
advertised as something else in the elite-controlled mass media. The
current tactics of counter-revolutionaries should be to connect the dots in
the public mind, to draw the connections between the IMF, the MAI, the WTO,
deteriorating Western societies, and the neo-interventionist NWO regime.
In solidarity,
rkm
~=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~Forwarded under Fair Use~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=~
Date: Feb. 23, 1998
From: •••@••.•••
To: •••@••.•••
Subject: ForeignCorrespondent Sender: •••@••.•••
Foreign Correspondent
Inside Track On World News
By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
Eric Margolis <•••@••.•••>
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SHOOTING FISH IN A BARREL
by
Eric Margolis 23 Feb 1998
NEW YORK - Secretary General Kofi Annan's eleventh-hour mission
to Baghdad may have averted war between the US and Iraq. As of
this writing the situation remains fluid.
Should the Baghdad talks fail, the likliest start date for Gulf
War II would be the dark moon phase next Wednesday or Thursday.
Should the US-British attack come later, it must end well before
millions of Muslims begin the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in
the third week of March.
The anticipated air campaign against Iraq, a nation of 22
million, will be like shooting fish in a barrel. Iraq, in
spite of wildly exaggerated claims about the threat it
poses, has very little military capability. Seven years of
crushing sanctions have left its armed forces in shambles.
Iraqi air and ground forces are at 45% operational
capability due to serious shortages of arms, spare parts and
munitions.
Out of Iraq's 350,000-man army, only 6 Republican Guard
divisions - about 72,000 troops - are considered combat
effective. Iraq has 2,700 tanks, but 2,000 are obsolete
T-54/55/62's. The army has only 700 modern T-72's, of which
400-500 are operational. During Gulf War I, their shells
bounced off the thick armor of US M1 tanks. The Iraqi Army
still retains a powerful artillery arm of 1,800 guns.
Half of Iraq's air force is grounded by lack of spares,
leaving about 150 mainly obsolescent fighters and attack
aircraft airworthy. Deprived of an integrated air combat
system and attendant radars, Iraq's air force will be
totally destroyed, unless it flees to Iran, in the first two
days of fighting. US AWACS radar planes, flying over the
Gulf and Saudi Arabia, will vector US F-15E's and F-16's to
attack the Iraqi warplanes on the ground the moment they
light up their engines. The few that get airborne will be
shot down in short order.
The American attack will begin with strikes by hundreds of
cruise missiles against Iraqi air defense installations, air
bases, communication hubs, command headquarters and power
plants. Iraq's anti-aircraft missiles and guns will be
blinded or destroyed. The new generation of cruise
missiles, guided by the GPS satellite system, is far more
accurate than the one used in the first Gulf War.
Simultaneously, the US will unleash the most secret of its
new weapons, information warfare. US military hackers will
enter Iraqi computer networks, which control air defenses
and military communications, and either wreck them by
inserting viruses, or fill them with false information.
American UAV drones will spoof Iraqi radars and intercept
communications, including previously secure microwave
transmissions. US special ops ground units will tap into
Iraqi fibre optic land lines, sending out fake orders to air
and army units.
Specialized Tomahawk missiles will short out Iraqi
electronic grids with metallic wires, and spray clouds of
minute carbon fibres that coat electronic equipment and
antennas, rendering them useless. Microwave generators will
be used for the first time to burn out Iraqi electronics.
Iraq will become a giant test bed for America's 21st Century
high tech electronic warfare.
Once Iraq's feeble air defense are eliminated by missiles
and F-117 Stealth fighters - and possibly B-2 Stealth bomber
attacks - US Air Force and Navy planes will attack 90 key
sites in Iraq. These will include all military and security
force headquarters, barracks, power and transportation
systems, military depots, bridges, dams and oil distribution
facilities.
Prime targets will be, of course, Saddam Hussein, and Iraq's
hidden stores of chemical/biological warfare agents. US
satellites and electronic intelligence systems constantly
hunt the Iraqi leader. New bombs have been rushed into
service, capable of penetrating up to 18 feet of reinforced
concrete, designed to attack Saddam and the Iraqi leadership
in their deep, underground bunkers. Suspected storage sites
of VX-series nerve agents, mustard gas, and biological
agents will come under sustained attack. If released, these
agents could cause enormous civilian casualties.
The mainstay of Saddam's regime, Iraq's Republican Guards
and the 100,000-man security forces, will be precision and
carpet-bombed by US strike aircraft, B-52 and B-1 heavy
bombers. Extensive use will be made of new generation
wide-area cluster bombs, and enormously powerful fuel air
explosives, "mini-nukes" that produce devastating
overpressures on dug-in troops and equipment.
Iraq's 500 helicopters will be another key target, since
Saddam used them after the Gulf War to crush internal
rebellion by Kurds and Shias who make up half of Iraq's
population. CIA may attempt to mount another Kurdish
uprising. The two main Kurdish groups can field 25,000
fighters and 40,000 tribesmen - provided they stop fighting
one another and march on Baghdad. However, the CIA's last
attempt in 1996 to turn the Kurds against Saddam was a
bloody fiasco.
Some 4,000 air sorties are planned, spanning at least 4-5
days, or possibly spread, after bombing assessments, over
two weeks. Unlike Gulf War I, US aircraft will not be able
to operate from Saudi Arabia. Flying from distant air bases,
Kuwait, Oman, and off aircraft carriers, the effectiveness
of US air power will be more limited this time, but still
deadly. Iraq is largely open terrain: ground targets will
again be sitting ducks. In the Mideast, air power is
everything: without air cover, war becomes a sustained
massacre, as Gulf I so vividly showed.
Iraq's ability to retaliate is extremely limited. US
intelligence estimates Iraq may have a few Scud missiles
left. Of Iraq's original 819 Scuds, all but two have been
destroyed or fired. Iraq may have hidden five chemical
warheads for Scuds, and Scud components that could be
assembled into 3-5 missiles.
The Iraqis might fire one or two Scuds at Israel - which
Iraq blames for pressuring the Clinton Administration into
the new war- but probably not with chemical or biological
warheads. Israel and the US have made plain they will
retaliate with nuclear or chemical weapons if attacked by
Iraqi chemical/bio agents. Iraq might launch a few air
suicide missions against US forces, or shoot off some car
bombs in Kuwait, but beyond that Baghdad has little
retaliatory capability. Unless, of course, an enraged
Saddam initiates a Gulf Gottedammerung by releasing deadly
anthrax into southerly winds. This is unlikely, but not
impossible.
A US-British attack on Iraq will spark enormous outrage
across the Muslim World. Retaliation by various free-lance
terrorist groups against American installations and citizens
abroad is likely. A few terrorist attacks on the US and
even Canada are possible. The impending attack on Iraq is
seen by many Mideasterners as modern colonial warfare by the
US and Britain against a nasty but helpless nation.
A small number of American or British pilots may die. Many
thousands of Iraqis, civilians and soldiers, will certainly
perish. Iraq will again be "de-industrialized," i.e. bombed
back into the Stone Age. But Iraq will still retain its
22,000 military technicians and the ability to rebuild its
weapons program within five years.
An assault on Iraq will be a useful, if enormously
expensive, testing ground for the US military, but will
bring no glory on America's armed forces. It will be a
high-tech massacre, akin to Imperial Britain's slaughter, a
century ago, of the spear-armed Dervish army at Omdurman, or
America's brutal Indian Wars - certainly not a battle in the
heroic tradition of Midway, Guadalcanal and the Chosen
Reservoir.
copyright eric margolis 1998
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