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:: posted by buermann @ 2006-12-01 09:45:31 CST |
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Funny how 'pro-western' never quite makes it into the discussions of the ISG report. I wondered, watching Sandra Day O'Connor damning the media for it's endlessly cynical coverage of the war and hoping that this report unites the country to essentially stay the course until success is achieved (if only the anti-American media cooperates), does ISG really stand for Implementing Soylent Green?
posted by Diane
@ 2006-12-07 02:04:19 | link
That''''s funny, I was a big fanboy of Harry Harrison when I was a kid, the Stainless Steal Rat and Bill the Galactic Hero and so on.So I happen to be familiar with the fact that Harry Harrison was against this war from the start. If they actually have been feasting on the corpses of dead US soldiers like you suggest - and they have been cagey about the bodies - he''''d sue for IP infringement, under his prior art claim on that particular business method. But I''''m pretty sure they''''re just callously putting the troops'''' interests below that of salving their own crapulent, undeserved egos. They''''re more like an Illithid conspiracy, and the ISG report is more of a concerted mind blast against the US public. Or were you suggesting the spoiler ending, "Iraqis is people!"?
posted by buermann
@ 2006-12-07 13:22:44 | link
Thanks for the Harrison link. I didn't know that. I haven't read the entire report but from what I've read it's more an invitation to the private international sector to partake in an Iraqi fire sale which includes - as you've stated - installing a pro-western regime in Iraq by any means necessary. And it doesn't stop there. The report's references to Iran and Syria do little more than support the same barriers to dialogue with those countries that Bush and Blair have cited ad nauseum by presenting conditions that render such negotiations non-starters. Perhaps that's only the public face and there's something more going on behind the scenes. I doubt it. What's to negotiate? I agree it's a total mind blast in that it encourages Americans to think there are realists in the U.S. who are willing to negotiate with its 'enemies' but in fact it doesn't, a claim that will likely be used against what they will call the intractable positions of Syria and Iran at a future point (if ever there is one) when the U.S. is in a position to 'liberate' those countries as well. When I cited Soylent Green I had in mind the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have been killed, maimed and are dying, all of those who have died and are dying physically and spiritually due torture, the Palestinians who for months now have been murdered, starved and brutalised more grotesquely than usual allegedly because they voted the wrong way, the Egyptians, Saudis, and Jordanians who are denied democracy because it isn't in U.S. interests, and the Lebanese who were killed by U.S.-Israeli ordinance and continue to die as they sift through acres of it in their ruined country. I think the govt. would argue they've protected the troops pretty well. They've built them terrific bases equipped with all of the amenities from home and lost relatively few in total loss of life so far, in their opinion. The overpopulation, the so-called anti-Americans, are the ones denied food and security, housing and infrastructure, liberty and justice. When they dare to riot they are labelled terrorists and scooped into the U.S. death machine. If every Iraqi, including the Kurds who've already denounced the report, ever collectively decided to roll over to U.S. directives I suppose the spoiler ending could be "Iraqis is people!" but I figure it will be the original.
posted by Diane
@ 2006-12-08 07:34:32 | link
The fire sale stuff is just another sick joke for these guys. The CPA already had the ISG's fire sale, and the situation then was too risky for investors.If we were a sane country we'd want to negotiate with Iran about preventing the same outcome the Pentagon talks about with the "80% option", which is a genocide of the Sunnis. And if we were a sane country we would be talking with Syria about assistance for the immense refugee crisis that Syria is bearing half the burden of, and will be carrying any future load almost single handedly, as Jordan has started shutting down the borders. Plenty of bargaining chips to throw around if we needed to, but both those things are in Syria and Iran's interests (Iran wants a weak Iraq, but that's hardly at odds with them pulling the leash on their clients). The ISG's position on all that is irrelevant, the core substance of their "solution" - which will probably be implemented - is just another round of stepping up "Iraqization" efforts (more of the same! again! only better this time! and we mean it!) which might as well be the same thing as the 80% option, since that just amounts to making Shi'ite deathsquads even deadlier. Soylent Green, you'll recall, was a voluntary program. I figured you were talking about sending our volunteer army into the meat grinder. The wonderful protection they recieve just means they're only partially euthanized, which may be a fate worse than soylent. Psychologically ground up and/or physically broken. Like you say, Iraqis wouldn't pass muster as ISG-approved SG ingredients: not "people" enough.
posted by buermann
@ 2006-12-08 10:56:40 | link
I'm not so sure about the fire sale. It seems to me that the U.S. has been pretty tight fisted about who can have a piece of Iraq - coalition partners only - at least on the record.Greed, power, and more of the same rule the day, no doubt. I've always argued that the U.S. wouldn't arm and finance any death squad that hadn't declared allegiance to U.S. interests, keeping in mind that declaring and implementing are not the same thing, which is one reason why the U.S. should not be arming or financing any group but more obviously because the U.S. has run the gamut of humanitarian excuses for continuing the occupation and they all lead to the same slippery conclusion. If Baker were serious about talking to Syria he'd have a bargaining chip in hand, say the Golan Heights. I'd have liked to be a fly on Cheney's suit when he went to Saudi Arabia recently, which seems to be a more likely staging area for the Sunni insurgency than Syria. Anyway, it's been a long while since I saw the movie. I remembered that folks volunteered to be euthanised but I was thinking that the rioters who were shovelled up and died were shipped off to become SG as well. Your thoughts on the troops and Iraqis ring painfully true.
posted by Diane
@ 2006-12-08 13:36:18 | link
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