Monday, May 30, 2005

Shock and Awe Urban War

Hong Kong, May 30. The American and Iraqi public were conditioned by Pentagon spinners before the Iraqi War started that the unprecedented bombing raids on Iraq in the opening days of the war would “shock and awe” the Iraqis to surrender en masse and greet the coalition liberators with open arms, flowers and smiles. Bush spinners privately said the war might last only two or three weeks. On the opening night of the war, they took a chance on winning the war in a single night by striking at a Baghdad compound where Saddam Hussein and his sons were believed to be staying. In fact it was the Pentagon that was in shock and awed by the tough and fierce resistance the Iraqis initially put up. Marines were down to one meal a day because of guerrilla and suicide attacks that created logistical chaos and delayed the arrival of the supply convoys from the rear. Something the military planners overlooked.

Sand storms and unexpected traffic jams on the main highways made the job easier for the suicide bombers. The war required twice the number of U.S. troops than were planned for, took longer and was more costly than most Americans expected because of how we were conditioned by the war spinners and the phony rigged war games planned and played by the Pentagon. “There is a realization that we came in a little light,” an officer told his troops. “It was hubris to go on Fox News and proclaim the war would be a cakewalk,” a former aide to the first president Bush said. “The gods were bound to hear it.”

“The enemy we’re fighting is different from the one we war-gamed against,” Lieutenant General William Wallace said. They were aware of the fierce loyalty of the Iraqi militia to Saddam Hussein, “but we did not know how they would fight.” Why not? The CIA analysts had warned the Pentagon about the threat of the paramilitary units but the Bushies at the Pentagon decided not to fully brief the commanders in the field. Any wonder they were caught by surprise? “We misjudged their tenacity,” a senior U.S. intelligence official says of Iraqi leaders. “These guys are driven by a hatred (toward the United States) that we may have underestimated.” What an understatement. The Pentagon was convinced the Iraqi generals would capitulate and surrender. “Our intelligence assessments were overly optimistic,” a senior U.S. military official says. “They were simply wrong.”

During World War I after the British liberated the Iraqis from the Ottoman Empire, the Iraqis slaughtered tens of thousands of British soldiers who marched into Iraq expecting the same hero’s welcome the coalition forces expected for liberating the country. After the way the first Bush administration let them down in 1991 when they heeded his call to rise up and overthrow Saddam that resulted in their own massacre, is it any wonder they are going to be cautious the second time around? When is America going to learn? Why not do it right the first time? Why expect people to risk their lives after they were betrayed the first time around? No spin can change this basic human survival instinct.

The urban war America got sucked into in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities was not supposed to happen, according to the Pentagon game plan. But then again, when you spin fake outcomes to war games why should we be surprised? From Stalingrad in World War II, to the U.S. Marine assault on Hue, Vietnam, in 1968 during the Tet offensive and to Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993, when sophisticated Black Hawk helicopters were brought down by primitive shoulder-fired rocket-propelled grenades, urban warfare has always shocked and awed the superior invading army.

Central Command chief General John Abizaid, who succeeded General Tommy Franks, said the Iraqis “are conducting what I would describe as a classical guerrilla-type campaign against us. It’s low-intensity conflict in our doctrinal terms, but it’s war however you describe it…The level of resistance…is getting more organized and it is learning.” The general’s comments contradicted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who said five weeks earlier that it was not “anything like a guerrilla war or an organized resistance”. With average daily losses of more than one U.S. soldier’s life in Iraq since President Bush declared victory and an end to major hostilities on May 1, 2003, his announcement clearly rings just as empty and hollow as the flyboy suit he wore.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

War Costs, Beneficiaries and Beasts of Burden

Before the war on Iraq started, not a single Bushite spinner would discuss the cost of the war. It was “not knowable” and “it was too soon to say with precision how much the war will cost.” Even the President refused to discuss the costs of the war. Yet five days into a war of which no-one could predict the duration and final outcome, the Bush spinners produced a precise figure -- $74.7 billion to cover the war’s first 30 days. If you think about it carefully, can we really believe this number was “not knowable” for weeks if not months before the war started? Will we ever know the real cost, especially if it drags out for years?

To better understand how war costs are spun to hide the real cost, real beneficiaries and real beasts of burden that are saddled with the costs, a close analysis of the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq to “Free Kuwait” is quite informative and enlightening.

The 1991 war, which lasted for six weeks, cost $40 billion. We were told that America paid only 25 percent of the cost, that is $10 billion, while the balance of $30 billion was paid by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Where did they get the money? The oil price before the war was approximately $15 per barrel. Once the war started it rose to $42 a barrel generating an EXTRA $60 billion. In the Arab oil-producing countries, the state keeps 50 percent of the revenues and the multinational oil companies keep the remaining 50 percent. It is known as the “fifty–fifty” law. This means Kuwait and Saudi Arabia got $30 billion and the oil companies also got $30 billion. The oil companies, Shell, Exxon, Mobil… are of course U.S.- owned. They managed to keep $9 billion and paid the U.S. government the remaining $21 billion in taxes.

The bottom line is, the U.S. government that spent $10 billion on the war made a profit of $11 billion. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia broke even, while the U.S. oil companies made a $9 billion profit! The cost to “Free Kuwait” was paid by We the Apathetic People who paid the extra cost per gallon every time we refilled our tanks. We believed the increased cost was because of the war to “Free Kuwait”. Was it, or was it to increase the profit of the oil companies? It gets better. Let’s not forget that the $40 billion spent went exclusively to pay for the equipment, ammunition, supplies and services to fight the war. The U.S. military-industrial complex.

The same analysis for the war in Afghanistan and millennium war in Iraq to “Free the Iraqi People” will come up with the same conclusions. Different numbers, but bottom line, the primary beneficiaries are the oil companies and the manufacturers of all the weaponry used. Who pays for it all? We the Apathetic People, our children and grandchildren! Truck drivers and all other working Bush supporters should stop and think about their blind loyal support of the Bush oiligarchy as their trucks come to a screeching halt because they can no longer afford the cost of gasoline. The oil companies are determined to pocket whatever change is left in anyone’s pocket and bank account. It’s time to collect what they missed in 1991 after the Gulf War.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Magnified Anglo-American and Sino-Latino Differences

Historically, the differences -- rather than the similarities -- in Anglo-American and Sino-Latino societies have been emphasized, leading to the belief in America that Chinese and Latinos are not just different, but in many ways inferior. The jokes that the reason the Florida recount was taking so long was because Manuel was doing it are a glaring recent example. This image has been magnified in recent years by self-serving zealots. Some argue that if Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union were the monsters of the 20th century, Chinese societies have all the makings of becoming the monsters of the 21st century. A “21st-century version of the Soviet bear,” America’s top military official pronounces. The Chinese government buys American politicians with illegal contributions, steals nuclear technology from the U.S., illicitly sells arms and technology to other countries, violates human rights with impunity, amasses nuclear weapons, continues to occupy Tibet and threatens Taiwan’s safety and security. Yet it always gets a sweetheart deal from the U.S. and is crowned a most favored trading nation.

China, unlike illusive, faceless, shadowy corporate and foreign terrorists, is an easily identifiable target for America’s career politicians with all their shortcomings and frustrations. Conservative Republicans add China to the list of countries that harbor terrorists and should be bombed. China is mentioned in the same breath as Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya! Not being included in the “Axis of Evil” was a progressive millennium step. My hope is this trilogy can contribute to the education needed to dispose of the negative image of Chinese ingrained in America’s national psyche.

American career politicians who are loyal party cadres, in both parties, perpetuate the differences by fear-mongering. The Republican Party millennium platform regards China as “America’s key challenge in Asia”. The start of the 2004 presidential election saw China again made a political scapegoat. Faced with a sputtering economy and increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, China again became the whipping boy. It was blamed for the failed 2003 WTO meeting in Cancun and accused of keeping the value of the yuan artificially low to maintain a trade advantage over U.S.-based manufacturers. Economists who warned the Bush administration of the potential of a trade war that will destabilize China’s economy and set off a global financial crisis were shunted aside in favor of the political spinmeisters who wanted to appease the voters in the critical rust-belt states of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. To listen to some of the politicians on the right, you’d think the old Japanese internment camps were being dusted down for new occupants. Chinese are about the same color and size. They’ll do. Oops, actually South Asians and Arab Muslims will do for now.

However, American and Sino-Latino civilizations have much in common, as well as much that is different, that can be used by America to learn, understand and grow. A “marriage of East and West” similar to what Alexander the Great did when he officiated at a mass wedding of 9,000 of his soldiers to Asian women, a conscious act of state. Even President Bush acknowledged this is needed to President Jiang Zemin at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in 2002.

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Home Grown and Imperial Dramas

The closing year of the old millennium in America ended with an illuminating political, military and media circus in Florida. One that exposed American doubts about the political system it proselytizes to the world and the American family. A presidential “electoral joke” -- and the Elian Gonzalez family reunion. The new millennium then witnessed, for the first time in history, a change in the party controlling the U.S. Senate without an election. That, along with the change of the New York skyline after the Twin Towers imploded, forever changed a people’s misperception of themselves. Fear and the quest for knowledge and understanding became very personal.

Americans conveniently overlook the facts that America’s “Twin Towers”, its “secure free democratic model” and “transparent corporate governance” have become global jokes. America is the world’s largest arms dealer, has the largest nuclear arsenal and is home to the largest corporate frauds and bankruptcies. The U.S. threatens the security of anyone who is a threat to its corporate or geopolitical agenda. Yet America always gets a favourable deal from the United Nations, even when it is delinquent for several years in paying its dues. It is crowned the world’s sole superpower and has all the makings of becoming the global bully of the 21st century. Some would say it already has. The successor to England and Spain, America imposes its will on the United Nations and other international organizations such as NATO, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. They then pass it on to taxpayers and to Asia like shopkeepers passing a price increase on to the consumer.

America’s evolving New World Order is dominated by tense dysfunctional communities that share two sharply defined conditions:
-Expensive political, corporate and religious hypocrisy and
-Social and economic models that are being warped in a vain attempt to emulate the glorified ideal of the “American model” with its crony capitalists sitting becalmed in an intellectual Dead Sea surrounded by Reaganesque lifeguards.
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