The Empire Strikes Again!

They’re gone. American troops are withdrawing from Iraqi cities, six years after entering, and hundreds of thousands of dead later.

After September 11th, the empire decided to crush the designated “Axis of Evil” along with any and all who stood in the way of American profits. Years of chaos ensued, with attacks ravaging local markets, battles among religious, ethnic and political factions, and ubiquitous pillaging.

The first to take their tithe were the American multinational corporations closest to Washington’s neoconservatives for whom the country was to be bled dry. Flurries of mercenaries, military strikes, and serial torture in American prisons. Certainly Saddam Hussein had fallen but the Iraqi infrastructure (and the country with it) has also collapsed.

The occupation sowed the seed of decades of hate and today everyone holds their breath; the population fears an explosion of violence, the militias seize every opportunity to impose martial law, and multinational petroleum corporations are just begging to begin the exploitation of six of the largest Iraqi oil fields as soon as possible. All the big guns are there-Exxon, Shell, Total- and all of them have their eyes on the reserves of 115 billion barrels that lie underground. How many died for that juicy piece of profit?

Today, the defeat of the American army has defied history. The lessons have yet to be learned and the lasting effects of the crimes have yet to be measured but it is clear that the clash of civilizations initiated by George Bush has incited violence across an entire land and we will never be able to assess all of the consequences. France and its president had the courage to oppose this adventure in spite of internal and international pressures and threats.

Imagine the consequences had we believed Colin Powell’s disturbing warnings to the UN about vials filled with an unknown substance that would one day kill us all. What would have happened had Pierre Lellouche, our new minister of European Affairs, was a convinced Bushie and an obedient servant of the all-holy Trans-Atlantic Relationship? One simply must consider the consequences had France decided to capitulate and follow lock-step with the American empire.

From now until August 2010, 50,000 combat units will leave Iraq but new troops will be dispatched to Afghanistan, where a coalition army (including some French soldiers) has been entangled for years. The Taliban has finally defeated coalition troops in the region after years of occupation and has successfully reinvigorated the message of Islamic fundamentalists in the area. Put other actors into the mix and one quagmire follows another.

Will Barack Obama be able to break from eight years of American strategy and institute a new international dynamic in the region? Alas, nothing could be less predictable. It will not be enough for Obama to rely on Iran to reestablish stability. The Persian giant also needs to be liberated in order to become a major geopolitical actor in the region.

The legitimacy of the American superpower has been called into question. The capitalist policeman has shown itself to be nothing more than an insatiable oaf and the economic crisis has thrown light on the wasted resources and human lives that lay by the wayside of American progress. This constant push for profit at any cost- even war-has become too much of a threat to our planet for us to put up with the empire any longer.