On the US conquest of Iraq, and Australia's refugee non-problem.

It occurs to me that although I've regularly flung around links about and relating to the Iraq Conquest (and I'm probably not going to bother with much linkage in this post - I don't really have time to go URL hunting today), I don't think I've actually come out and stated what my detailed position is on the subject. Fundamentally, the biggest and most primary issue that I have always had with it, is the lies told. Everything from the "Weapons of Mass Destruction are poised and ready to be used by Iraq", to the "Jessica Lynch" bullshit... The US has had the Ministry Of Truth working absolutely full time to attempt to snow everyone in sight about the real situation.

The real situation is somewhat complex. BushCorp sneaked itself into power by fairly devious means (get your brother in as governor of the key state. Appoint a majority of the Supreme Court. Fail to win the election despite using as many nasty tricks as possible to stop your opponents getting out their vote, then stop the recount using the aforementioned Supreme Court, thus declaring yourself President despite not actually having won any kind of vote), and proceeded to lie somewhat low for a while... there were hints of activity, like the Alaskan oil stuff, but not that much. When 2001Sept11 happened (and I don't really credit the ideas that it was orchestrated by BushCorp themselves - the worst that might have gone on was a "I don't want to hear about bad stuff" denial from the top down about terrorism), BushCorp saw an opportunity. The opportunity is simple, and is one that is utterly familiar to anyone who's studied any history.

Find an external enemy, blame all your problems on them, then have a nice war of conquest. Soak up the attention of the populace by waving the war in front of them, and then you can sneak all sorts of things (remember the Lilly immunity-from-prosecution clause snuck into the Patriot Act? How about that Alaskan oil then? Immunity from prosecution for corporations that are participating in the "Iraq reconstruction"? *Which* corporations are participating? Oh, the BushCorp ones? Hrm.) past the population, who are happily watching the war.

Even before 2001Sept11, PNAC was pretty clear that one of the major aims of BushCorp should be to fight a bunch of wars around the world, in order to maintain the US as a pre-eminent world power. I think it's fairly clear that the Iraq War has indeed achieved this aim... and that the Iraq war is probably going to result in a democratically run Iraq, and that that is probably going to be a better outcome (we don't know yet - it's still possible for the place to degenerate into ultra-religious factional control, a-la Israel) for the average Iraqi than the prior situation under Saddam. Probably.

But, in order to get into this war, and in order to continue to sell this war, BushCorp has told an awful lot of porkies, not least of which is the snow job about the situation in international law. See War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal. Well, duh, guys. Iraq was a sovereign state. The US has conducted an illegal invasion of a foreign state. It even probably had a good reason to do so, and one which a large chunk of the US populace would have agreed with even at the time - Saddam was an ugly and terrible dictator. But, instead of selling a war of freedom, it was sold as a war of fear. And the reasons given were, and still are, pure bullshit, despite the best efforts of the Ministry of Truth.

People like rebelcoyote have been nearly killed whilst their friends died next to them because of a pack of lies. As he has said himself - there is good being done out there in Iraq. But it's good done for the wrong reasons. I don't say that they should pull out. They're committed now, and pulling out would cause an immense and terrible disaster. But going there was a terrible terrible misappropriation of resources.

The question that US citizens need to ask themselves is - was it money and resources well spent? The budget for the Iraq war is truly immense (go look up the numbers yourselves, they're scary), and even a small fraction of that budget would outweigh the entire education budget for the US for years. Remember one thing, US citizens: your government is elected to protect and serve you. Not some random foreigners halfway around the world. You. This is what all governments are supposed to do. Does pouring a massive amount of money and resources into a black hole halfway around the world help US citizens? I don't think so. At least, not as much as pouring a similar amount of money into say, education, health and basic scientific research programmes would have. Even welfare schemes.

Yes, there is an element in which prevention is better than cure, especially regarding the "terrorist problem"... but Iraq wasn't ever a credible threat to the US, and a war against Iraq helps terrorist recruitment, not hinders it. A far better solution to the "terrorist problem" would have been to form a real counter-terrorist investigative force. Instead, there's Patriot Act, its sequelae and various attendent "security measures", none of which actually help the situation, or help prevent anything at all. There are much better ways to help failed states than by shooting the hell out of them... and there are much worse failed states than Iraq or Afghanistan.

The rest of the world needs to ask themselves similar questions - is your government serving you by its actions in this (or any other!) matter? Is the US government doing the right thing by imprisoning your citizens without trial and torturing them? Remember, the US Government is still holding British and Australian citizens in Guantanamo Bay, and is probably still torturing (yes, sleep deprivation is torture, don't try and claim it isn't) them, along with a whole bunch of other people who were in Afghanistan at the time. And I'm sure that this action is at minimum violating the first provision of the Geneva Convention regarding Prisoners of War - the one that talks about all High Contracting Parties encouraging respect for that convention.

For Australian citizens - have a good hard think. Is our government serving us well by pointing loaded guns at refugee boats and turning them away? Is that encouraging respect for the Geneva Convention on Refugees? Does it actually serve our interests to turn these people away? Remember - these are people who want to come to Australia who are desperate enough to sell almost everything they have to get on a leaky boat and try to get here. They have a fairly serious level of motivation and dedication to survive and do well. That's exactly the sort of person I want to have in Australia, thanks very much. Remember again, we aren't required to support these people - there's no requirement to give them the dole. They're not citizens. They do have to pay their own way, by working pretty damn hard... and they're quite willing to. If they don't, they either starve or get kicked out of Australia. If they do well, then we can grant them permanent residency, and if they do even better, then hey, why not make them citizens of this fine country?

Short of resources? Naah, we're not. The water shortage problem in some of our cities is completely artificial. If we were to do any recycling of water, we'd be completely fine. Food? Hah. We can feed ourselves and lots more, without putting much dent in our resources, just by shifting the profile of what sort of animals we're willing to eat, and being a bit smarter with our farming tech. No resource problem here. We don't even have a high birthrate - we're not making replacement, last I looked. They're terrorists! Ahh, crap. They're not. No terrorist is going to get on a leaky boat. He's going to come in the front door on a tourist or business visa.

These are not the only issues that are kicking around. Think about them for yourself, do some research. And never forget - your government is accountable to you for its actions. If you don't like them, take action. And I don't mean necessarily just standing up and protesting. I mean go and find out more about the political process, and how you can affect it. And you can. It's your responsibility as a citizen to make the choice whether you want to affect the political process or not. I hope you choose to.