Gulf War II: The Dirty Alliance

By: Brendan McQuade
Posted In: Opinion

Anyone who even passively follows current events knows that the most pressing story is the occupation in Iraq. However, for all the extensive coverage very few people understand what is actually happening.

Initially, we were told that the war was fought to protect American safety from a tyrant and his massive stores of chemical, biological and perhaps even nuclear weapons. This was proved to be false. Some say that war was a regime change to create a progressive, liberal, western system in an area of the world that desperately needs modernization. But each day American troops are looking increasingly like foreign occupiers and less like humanist liberators.

Let’s connect the dots and try to understand the true nature of this situation that is dominating the news.

We do not know the exact reason for the war in Iraq, but we do know bits of information; these bits will be the compass points that lead to the truth. We know that George Bush lied in his State of the Union Address and Iraq did not buy uranium from Nigeria.

We also know the United States’ traditional western allies, with the exception of Britain, did not buy the case for war and for the most part it was a unilateral action. Further, we know that coalition forces found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Americans also know that 259 servicemen have died after the war was officially declared over and troops are not viewed as liberators but foreign occupiers in Iraq. We do not know exactly how many Iraq civilians are dead but we do know, as the Associated Press reported, an estimated 3,240 civilians died between March 20 and April 20.

Unfortunately, the AP said this figure was based on records of only half of Iraq’s hospitals and the actual number is significantly higher. The CIA also reported, that the guerilla warfare in Iraq is only getting worse. The CIA explained the resistance is swelling to tens of thousands of people, drawing in new groups of previously uninvolved Iraqis, like the Sunnis, and becoming increasingly organized, while terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Al Queda infiltrate Iraq.

Even more startling, we see that Iraq is not close to self-government but closer to corporate governance. Bechtel, a communications, construction and oil company, and other American corporations, are getting no bid contracts to rebuild infrastructure-not Iraqi business.

Halliburton is building an oil pipeline in Iraq and we know that Vice President Dick Cheney still gets one million dollars a year from Halliburton in deferred retirement benefits. In short, the only progress being made in Iraq is for American corporations who are major supporters of the Bush administration.

Since the war was not fought to protect America or to create a more stable Middle East, what was it fought for? The answer is the military ndustrial complex. George Bush raised the most money in the American history for his presidential campaign. Most of his funds came from massive corporations and now they are asking for kickbacks.

The Bush administration is drowning in dirty money. And the money in Iraq is the dirtiest and unfortunately the bloodiest. The American economy feeds on war and Iraq is the latest course in a violent meal that Gore Vidal calls “perpetual war for perpetual peace.”

This dirty alliance of politics, industry and the military is what former president Dwight Eisenhower warned about in his 1960 farewell address-the military industrial complex. The war in Iraq was fought to make the American elite wealthier, not to protect Americans or to “liberate” and improve the Middle East.

As corporate control becomes more and more pervasive and lies build upon lies, it raises the question whose interest does our government truly represent?