by James Glaser
July 15, 2003

Never mind the fact that George Bush campaigned on the promise that he was against the United States getting into Nation Building. That was campaign rhetoric where anything can be said to get a vote. Now in real life George is trying to Nation Build in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Things went better in Afghanistan. All we had to do was buy a big tent, pass out a few million dollars to several War Lords, promise that they could keep their own armies, and their little fiefdoms would remain theirs. For that they let us install our puppet as president and he gets to rule the capitol city of Kabul.

What was real nice about Afghanistan was the fact that we were able to revive the opium trade, so that those War Lords had a source of income and we didn't have to keep on pumping money their way. Also any pipe line deal is fine with these same War Lords as long as they get their Tribute, paid in American greenbacks. Yes, Afghanistan was so easy and cheap too.

Iraq on the other hand will not be that easy. First off there are no War lords to deal with and even though President Bush is trying to install his own set of them, it isn't working out the way he thought it would.

First off, President Bush invented a twenty five member council to rule Iraq, with people he thought the Iraqi people would like if we let them vote. That is almost a good as a real vote, but much cheaper.

So who were the first two George put on? Well, for sure the first would be a man with experience in economics and that would be Ahmad Chalabi, a former banker. Ahmad had his own bank in Jordan, but had to leave quick like as he was convicted of fraud and sentenced to twenty years in prison. That was in 1989, so President Bush's first pick to bring Democracy to Iraq should still be in prison. Now you know this guy knows how to play ball with the likes of our President.

We all know that President Bush is a religious man, so it was no surprise that he would also pick a religious man to help with Iraq's government and who better than Abel-aziz Al - hakim a leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, long based in Iran. George has yet to explain to Abel about the separation of Church and State in any Democracy we will allow Iraq to have.

You might wonder about the, "will allow" remark. You see, it does not matter what these twenty five leaders decide as George has kept veto power on anything they do. That is called, Bush Democracy.

On another note, the Department of Defense has been talking about troops from other countries coming to Iraq to help with our occupation, or liberation. If you are an Iraqi, your country is occupied with American troops, but if you are in the Bush administration you are just continuing to liberate Iraq with these troops and as soon as we can get some transportation for them and the Iraqi people fall into line, they will be coming home. Until then, we will just hang around and help how ever we can. Maybe we can get Iraq some good deals with our corporations and they can pay for this help, by turning over control of their oil. We are always there to help.

We have asked lots of countries for this help, but we are not getting any. Germany has troops in Afghanistan and several have been killed and many wounded, but they said no to Iraq, We had high hopes that India would send us a division (17,000) of troops to help us out, but the answer was no. In the popular news magazine Outlook, Prem Shankar Jha wrote, "Iraq has not been liberated, but invaded and occupied." He went on to say, "The Iraqis know it, resent it, and are preparing to resist it. If India sends troops to Iraq now it will be as part of an occupation force, Stabilization will mean oppression."

Most of the world feels the same way about what we are doing in Iraq and what we are doing to the Iraqi people. The American Media fails to report this fact, because our news is no longer run by a "Free Press." America's independent media is no longer independent, but is now owned by large corporations that have their own agenda.

Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq didn't have a drug that could be marketed to the world so that those who needed a payoff would be happy, but they do have oil, also Iraq had no opposition leaders we could buy. That is because Saddam Hussein killed off all opposition and that is why we needed to bring in leaders that were on the run from the law in other countries. These new leaders are Iraqis we know we can control.

Too bad we could only find two women to put on this council, because soon the women of Iraq will realize that Saddam treated then with more respect for their abilities than the American President does. Two women out of twenty five looks like 8% to me. Can you imagine how well women will be treated after the head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution gets his brand of a constitution installed. Real good George!

Post Script: On Sunday the 13th, one American was killed and two injured in a accident in Iraq. The name was withheld until relatives could be notified. On Monday the 14th, one American was killed and six wounded in a reported "coordinated attack with rocket propelled grenades. I am going to report all of the deaths I read about because American media now tends to put the accidental deaths of our troops off the front page. I think that is wrong.