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BURY MY HEART IN SADR CITY:
BLOOD FOR CORPORATE OIL
by Jack Random
There seems to be a moratorium in media criticism of the Iraq War. It is as if a truce has been declared, as the players hedge their bets in case the assault on Baghdad somehow claims victory from the vice grip of defeat.
The masters of media message have anointed General David Petraeus, the new commander in Iraq, a resident genius and savior of the cause, as if replacing General William Westmoreland in 1972 would have altered the outcome of Vietnam.
Let me go out on a limb while it is virtually unoccupied: There is not a chance in all the firmament that the siege of Baghdad will succeed.
How do I know this? Am I psychic? Do I have the gift of second sight? Can I divine the future by mystical means? No. I know because I have born witness to the past.
THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES:
DISSEMINATE FREELY!
The siege of Baghdad is not new. It is the strategy of Fallujah
in a city of six million inhabitants. Despite wanton brutality and
pathological destruction, it failed in Fallujah. It failed in Ramadi,
Mosul, Tal Afar and Samara. That it will fail in Baghdad is as clear as
a poet’s desire for a gypsy dancer.
The “strategy” is nothing
if not cynical in its naked brutality. The occupation forces enter a
target neighborhood, order women and children to leave, and declare a
free fire zone on the remaining inhabitants.
The new
“strategy” for “victory” in Iraq is a license to kill without
restraint. It assumes that the hearts and minds of the people have
already been lost. It is not a strategy for victory at all but a means
of postponing the outcome while applying pressure for a negotiated
settlement in line with America’s corporate interests, the lives of
Iraqi civilians and American soldiers be damned.
It is a
strategy for preserving American pride, protecting what remains of the
president’s reputation, and securing in the balance an oil contract for
four monolithic corporations: Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Shell and British
Petroleum (BP).
More than anything else, it is still about the oil.
In
our determination to find a way out of this nightmare, to end the
killing and the dying, we have allowed our “leaders” and the powers
that rule both mainstream parties to promulgate yet another myth of the
occupation.
We have been told that there has been no change in
our Iraq strategy. We have applauded as Democratic candidates for
president have lambasted the president for stubbornly clinging to
failed policies and we have joined in the chorus.
It is a lie.
It is another in a long line of cruel and costly deceptions. Our
president is not the commander. Our president is no longer in charge of
the quagmire he helped create. Our president is no longer the decider
of Iraq’s fate – if indeed he ever was.
There has in fact been
a decisive change in strategy. The real leaders of this bloody endeavor
long ago recognized that the occupation was a failure. They have long
understood that we would never be able to crush a strong and enduring
resistance. We would not be able to dominate the affairs of the Iraqi
state. We had failed to deceive the Iraqi people, failed to establish a
viable puppet government, and failed to convince the American people
that more blood and plundered treasure were in the national interest.
If
we could not “win” by domination, if we could not crush the Sunni
resistance, we would have to succeed by other means. We intentionally
and strategically set out to exploit the sectarian divisions that were
a natural and violent outgrowth of American-style democracy in Iraq.
Since
we could not dictate Iraqi oil policy directly, we determined to extort
the Shiite majority into yielding control of Iraqi oil despite their
better judgment.
The Iraqi oil law, promoted by Democrats and
Republicans alike as the essential solution to the Iraq civil war, is a
thinly disguised privatization scheme that will award the bulk of that
nation’s oil to the world’s leading oil corporations. Set to go before
the Iraqi Parliament this month, it will by no means solve Iraq’s
internal strife but it will accomplish the central goal of the American
occupation. [1]
The appropriate analogy is the Black Hills of
North Dakota in the latter half of the nineteenth century. When gold
was discovered on sacred Lakota lands, the American government declared
war on the Lakota people. When the war proved costly to American
sensibilities at the Greasy Grass (Little Big Horn), they divided the
Lakota into “friendlies” and renegades, killing Sitting Bull and Crazy
Horse and slaughtering the Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee. When they
attempted a “negotiated settlement,” they could not find legitimate
Lakota leaders willing to sign away their land so they found others who
did.
The tragic and despicable truth is that history repeats.
Our soldiers are not dying in vain.
Our soldiers, along with 200 times that many Iraqis, are dying for Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Shell and British Petroleum.
Our assault on Baghdad is a proxy war of genocide against the Sunni resistance.
Bury my heart in Sadr City.
Jazz.
[1] “Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?” by Antonia Juhasz, New York Times, March 13, 2007.
JACK
RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND
GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE
APPEARED ON THE ALBION MONITOR, PEACE-EARTH-JUSTICE, THE NATIONAL FREE
PRESS, PACIFIC FREE PRESS, LEFTWARD, DISSIDENT VOICE AND COUNTERPUNCH.
SEE RANDOM JACK: WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM
I'm not a professional blogger, nor am I one who has any particular political agenda that I'm aware of. I'm just an army veteran of the Viet Nam war who has a son serving in Iraq at the present. Reading this piece leads me to wonder, have you ever been in Iraq? If not, I hope you will understand my reluctance to believe you have knowledge about the situation there that's not available to the rest of us. As my great grandmother was a full blood Whapahoo I also appreciate what the government did to the American Indians; however, that analogy makes no sense. Who will turn the natural resourses of Iraq, the oil in the ground, into money the Iraqi people can use to rebuild their country? Do the Iraqi's themselves possess the capabilities to do that? It doesn't seem so, does it. So who will assist them? That is the real question, then isn't it.
Personally, I think America should take the billions of dollars we're currently spending on NASA projects and develop as many alternative energy sources to oil as possible, making the oil in the middle east worthless because, let's face it, the Muslim fundalists are really fighting to gain control of the countries there so they can control the oil in order to be able to afford the weapons that will enable them to make the world a fundamentalst Muslim world. I'm sure if you would ask all the fundementalist Muslim leaders, they would say the ultimate goal is to make the world a fundementalists Muslim world. The Iranians are pursuing their version with the vision of returning the "Persian" empire to it's glory. Oil is just the vehicle. The Iranians used their oil to purchase the nuclear weapons they're developing. The means to the wealth that will buy the arms to control, first the Middle East, all the oil, then the world. Please tell me you can see that.
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... written by Kurt Nimmo,
March 17, 2007
Thanks for your interest. Where to begin? Firstly; as I think it is probably the most pressing matter: Iran does NOT possess nuclear weapons. This is important to remember, given the current context, where the U.S. and its fledgling Israel are poised to attack that country with, the rumour has it, nuclear weapons.
Secondly; Iraq did have the capability to produce and ship its oil before it was bombed back into the pre-industrial era by its current occupiers, America. Now, you would posit it America's duty to "help" them? That sounds like burning down a First Nation's village to save it (a concept a Viet Nam vet would find sounding familiar).
Thirdly; why do you assume Iran's goal is world domination, through Islam? Where did you get that factum, and why does it not sound ridiculous to you on its face? Even mighty America is finding world domination a difficult task these days, even with its massive nuclear arsenal and nuclear powered fleet (two carrier groups of which are currently stationed off the shores of Iran, ready to launch another "Shock and Awe" murder spree against another civilian population (the third such atrocity to occur under the auspice of George W. Bush).
Now, I agree; NASA's resources could be better spent than they are now, securing "full spectrum dominance" for the American military over the rest of the globe; but, what about the billions spent on weapons and war-making? Could not those dollars be better spent too? As a veteran, you must know first hand what an idiotic bureaucracy the U.S. military is, and how they waste the largest single budget the planet has ever seen! More cash is devoted to the practice of annihilation of the perceived enemies of America than any other ambition.
Please tell me you can see that your nation (not your hereditary one) is headed for disaster, and threatens the entirety of the race. Please tell me you will today educate yourself, and take a stand against this promised destruction!
Writings 
There seems to be a moratorium in media criticism of the Iraq War. It is as if a truce has been declared, as the players hedge their bets in case the assault on Baghdad somehow claims victory from the vice grip of defeat. 
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Personally, I think America should take the billions of dollars we're currently spending on NASA projects and develop as many alternative energy sources to oil as possible, making the oil in the middle east worthless because, let's face it, the Muslim fundalists are really fighting to gain control of the countries there so they can control the oil in order to be able to afford the weapons that will enable them to make the world a fundamentalst Muslim world. I'm sure if you would ask all the fundementalist Muslim leaders, they would say the ultimate goal is to make the world a fundementalists Muslim world. The Iranians are pursuing their version with the vision of returning the "Persian" empire to it's glory. Oil is just the vehicle. The Iranians used their oil to purchase the nuclear weapons they're developing. The means to the wealth that will buy the arms to control, first the Middle East, all the oil, then the world. Please tell me you can see that.