<div>Sunil and others-</div>
<div> </div>
<div>If guaranteeing control of Middle East oil in the long term (10-50 years or more) was even a partial motive to invade Iraq and establish military bases there (even Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chairman, and economic conservative, asserted protecting oil was a motivation) semi-permanent occupation was assumed from the beginning. Unless the "Utopian" alternative energy revolution becomes widespread globally, more oil resources wars are almost inevitable.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I used the word "Utopian" in the context of John Grey's book, "Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia," where he argues that the Iraq invasion was Utopian, an expression of a right wing Utopian belief that global market capitalism was poised to democratise the world. We still hear that China will democratise due to adoption of capitalism, while the Communist Party still maintains dominance. Chinese can't even talk without fear about the Tienanmen Square massacre, mention of which is censored by Google in China. We now see that Russia had adopted a new authoritarianism, moving away from the democracy some assumed would grow with adoption of capitalism and the collapse of communism. In an ironic manner, a Utopian ideal of global dominance of a superior model of human society, was promoted by communism, also justifying use of force (like the Iraq invasion) to accelerate adoption of the model. This is Grey's thinking I am paraphrasing.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I agree that the choice of "Utopian" to describe such massive civilian death and injury is disturbing. Grey was describing the belief that Iraq could be, via an invasion and use of force, turned into a stable coherent democracy, as a unrealistic Utopian goal.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>He did not think the Iraq invasion wise. Nor does Grey think the Utopian Green Revolution of alternative energy will stop anthropogenic climate change or fossil fuel resource wars. Grey is one cheery guy, but his realism is well argued.</div>
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<div>Ted Moffett</div>
<div> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 6/5/08, <b class="gmail_sendername">Sunil Ramalingam</b> <<a href="mailto:sunilramalingam@hotmail.com">sunilramalingam@hotmail.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<div>Ted,<br><br>I don't think it's a surprise, nor much of a secret. I think it's consistent with everything the Administration has done and with the total lack of an exit strategy. They never had one because they never planned to leave.<br>
<br>I think Washington will be surprised much the way the crowd was in the story of the Emperor's New Clothes. It seems to me that the Establishment and mainstream media have always accepted the bs rationales for this war as the truth, and now they're going to pretend to be shocked, shocked, that there's gambling at Rick's. [Yes, I'm trying to get as many lowbrow cultural references as possible into this post.]<br>
<br>I have trouble identifying a plan that involves the slaughter of civilians as utopian; 'unrealistic' or 'unfounded' or 'lacking in precedent' all seem like better choices to me.<br><br>Sunil<br>
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<hr>
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 14:00:45 -0700<br>From: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com" target="_blank">starbliss@gmail.com</a><br>To: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:sunilramalingam@hotmail.com" target="_blank">sunilramalingam@hotmail.com</a><br>
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Iraq & Big News: PNAC Website Suspended!<br>CC: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com" target="_blank">vision2020@moscow.com</a><br><br>
<div>Sunil et. al.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Secret plan? </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Many of the details regarding long term US plans in Iraq in this article are old news, though this exact "deal" may be an attempt to enshrine the plans for a long term "occupation" into a more definite form.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I've been saying for years that the US will be occupying Iraq 50 years from now... John McCain pushes the occupation potentially out to 100 years. </div>
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<div>Any president in power who pushes for a major pull out from Iraq will have to face the possibility of Iran gaining even more influence over Iraq, a rather problematic foreign policy outcome that will discourage pulling out. Saddam was an enemy of Iran, and kept Iranian influence away. This was of course part of the reason we gave Saddam military aid during the Iraq/Iran war. </div>
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<div>The US overthrow of Saddam empowered Iran, a nation that was probably more of a long term threat to US interests than Iraq. It was expected the US could, after invading Iraq, somehow bring about regime change in Iran. This point was made clearly in military think tank analysis of US foreign policy aims in regards to the Middle East, in articles presented by the Project for a New American Century, infamous neo-con think tank. The fact the Iraq "war" (it is now not a war but an occupation) had been such a disaster, in terms of bringing a coherent stable democracy to Iraq, has impeded the long term goals of regime change in Iran, a more important goal than bringing down Saddam.</div>
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<div>I just discovered the PNAC website was "suspended" on May 20, 2008. This is perhaps an expression of the utter failure of the neo-con agenda, now viewed perhaps as a major political burden for the Republican party!</div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century</a></div>
<div>------------------------------</div>
<div>Consider John Grey's (from the London School of Economics) analysis.</div>
<div>The Iraq invasion was perhaps Utopian, as Grey argues, an expression of the Utopian idealism of "global market capitalism:"</div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/213/features/10975/paradise_lost.html" target="_blank">http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/213/features/10975/paradise_lost.html</a><br>
</div>
<div>From URL above:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Instead, the right followed Fukuyama by envisaging global market capitalism as an unstoppable force of nature and panacea. "The characteristics which had been features of communist thinking came about on the right – the militant progressivism, indifference to the casualties of progress, and the belief that the whole world was moving towards some single model and that it should be accelerated by force," says Gray.<br>
--------------------------</div>
<div><br>The attempt to bring democracy to Iraq was utopian, Gray believes, because even with better planning it would still have failed. "The Kurds would still have broken away. There would still have been a conflict between the Sunni, who had been ruling the country, and the Shia – and a fairly strong Islamist force emerging through the Shia."<br>
<br>------------------<br><br>Gray thinks war should be only a last resort for self-defence. "The Second<br>World War was justified. But war shouldn't be used as an instrument for<br>improving the human condition. That's where I differ from the theories of<br>
pre-emptive war and revolution from the neoconservative right, which to me<br>exhibits the same kind of thinking as communism did."<br><br>He conjectures that the invasion of Iraq sounded the death knell for secular<br>
utopianism. "Iraq practically precludes another large-scale experiment along those lines. No one now, except a few post-Trotskyite neoconservatives in bunkers, talks about overturning all the regimes in the Middle East and replacing them with democracy."<br>
<br>------------------------------------------</div>
<div>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett<br> </div>
<div><span>On 6/5/08, <b>Sunil Ramalingam</b> <<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:sunilramalingam@hotmail.com" target="_blank">sunilramalingam@hotmail.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid">
<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.truthout.org/article/revealed-secret-plan-keep-iraq-under-us-control" target="_blank">http://www.truthout.org/article/revealed-secret-plan-keep-iraq-under-us-control</a><br>
<br>When do we come out and say it's a colony?<br><br>Sunil<br> </div><br>=======================================================<br> List services made available by First Step Internet,<br> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.<br>
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