Our object in Iraq was the destruction of their economic order. This was put into effect by the Bremer edicts. Despite all the ballyhoo about WMD, liberty, and democracy, the object was conquest and plunder, with the additional objective of gaining a foothold on the Asian landmass for more conquest and plunder on behalf of anglo-American global corporations. While there are cultural dimensions to this, namely, the traditional ugly-American syndrome, conquest is not likely to be well received in established cultures.

No amount of cultural sensitivity, awareness or propaganda is going to change this. The moral and ethical dimension to a war that starts as a Nuremberg violation and the slaughter of tens of thousands is not likely to be overcome. The resistence to reality based counterinsurgency is inherently ideological, namely, a rejection of the foreign notion that globalist corporations and their disney culture are a panacea. Saddam's society inherently rejected this notion as an encroachment on sovereignty and colonialism in a not so effective disguise. This rejection had nothing to with misguided adolescents looking for a movement. I'd note in this regard that the Australian protoganist in this essay with his worship of TE Lawrence, the colonial tour de force, is more the young turk looking for adventure and action, and exactly the type of totalitarian sophist with a venal need to belong as described by Hannah Arendt in the Origins of Totalitarianism.

The movements for change in the Islamic world judge us by our murderous actions and rapacious greed, not by cultural finesse or media information management techniques. I'm the first to admit that it helps to know your enemy, but we intentionally and deliberately create our enemies. The first principle of understanding enemies is understanding yourself. We are the enemy. We are the invaders. We are the putative conquerors. We are engaged in an overt attempt to control by force Iraqi business, markets, banking, resources and real estate. This is part of a larger plan to dominate Asia. This is the "soft" underbelly from which we expect to expand our dominion over other nations and their resources. We killed hundreds of thousands in this hare brained misadventure. Too bad there isn't an information blocking jungle in Iraq. Then we could engage in direct and unmitigated wholesale genocide without anyone noticing. Unfortunately, when you kill peoples loved ones in a war of colonial conquest they do talk about it at the rumor mill. No amount of intellectual sugar coating is going to change that reality. Torture and death camps just can't be covered up like they used to. This is also the problem of a nation proudly proclaiming they were going to tear up the Geneva Conventions and set up an international gulag. The camps in GITMO, Bagram and elsewhere are an international disgrace. Yoo, Gonzales, Dinh, the president and his cabinet of corporatist fools, proudly proclaimed their torture doctrine. The regime proudly declared its policy to pre-emptively make war and now suffers the consequences. TFB.

The so called global aspect of this counter jihad non-sense is little more than an excuse for bwana to interfere in the internal affairs of potential colonies throughout Asia and Africa. It's the colonial drive that led to WWI and WWII all over again. Al qaeda is an intelligence agency construct meant to advance the interests in the non status quo powers who are afraid if they don't provoke a pretext for aggression, the emerging global and regional power centers will permanently eclipse them in the competition for control of world resources. Hitler had a similar fear to motivate him.

It isn't bin laden's media strategy that helps bush electorally. The content of bin laden tapes is confabulated by pro=western intelligence sources. The pentagon and bush needed a bogeyman who is still useful in larger plan to disintegrate the new states into compliant tools of western economic and strategic objectives. Bin laden also provides further excuses for ridiculously exhorbitant defense budgets that result in military failure and the necessity for a police state to oppress a dissatisfied populace at home. Bin laden works for Saudi Arabia, ISI and the American intelligence community. And what a useful agency it has been. The shareholders rejoice. As a geo-political strategy counter insurgery and a campaign against "world wide" jihad are dead on arrival.