Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Crony Hegemony

Seeing The Forest quotes Drudge today :

THE BLITZ, THEN SIEGE OF BAGHDAD STARTS IN FOUR DAYS: Troops hope to have Saddam Hussein surrounded in Baghdad within four days after an unprecedented aerial blitz which will obliterate one in 10 major buildings in Iraq… Developing…

He then comments:

This fits with one of these rumors we have been hearing — that the Iraq war is happening because the right wingers want to demonstrate America’s superior power to the world. They want to show the world what we can do to anyone that opposes us.

Destroying one of every ten major buildings in Iraq? Because we think Iraq might attack us someday? Because, as Bush said in his speech last night, they might attack us in five years?

I might add that there now appears to be several other very important reasons to destroy one in ten buildings in Baghdad:

Bechtel

Halliburton

Fluor

Parsons

LBG

etc

These are American owned international construction firms. In a move so cynical and so audacious that it is hard to wrap your arms around, it would appear that the Bush administration is preparing to destroy the infrastructure of an entire country and then repay their largest campaign contributors with huge no-bid contracts to rebuild it.

And, happily for all concerned, these companies — operating outside the onerous regulatory climate of the United States — can cut corners to their hearts content while obscenely overbilling the government by the billions, all under the fog of war. And nobody pays any taxes at all!

This is not unprecedented, of course. There is a long history of war profiteering on the part of major players in this administration going all the way back to the 30’s. Crony capitalism is nothing new. National corporatism has been seen before (notably Nazi Germany.) Colonialism is the oldest story in the book. But, this takes it to a new audacious level.

It’s not all about oil. It’s simpler than that. It’s just all about money. Big Business spent over 100 million dollars installing the idiot sock-puppet to do its bidding and he is doing it — not that he, or even many of those surrounding him probably know it explicitly. He thinks he’s been ordained by God and some others are sincere, if deluded, in their belief that the best thing for the world is American “benevolent hegemony,” however oxymoronic that is in the context of “Shock and Awe.” Being generous one could say that those neocon idealists like William Kristol, who laid out the positive vision for the Pax Americana, are the most useful idiots the corporatists could have ever dreamed of.

The real question now is whether the businesses who own the Bush administration are thinking long term or short term. Do they value stability and predictablity to protect their long term investments or are they modern quick hit artists? If it is the latter then we are led back to the corporate scandals and find that the scariest aspect of this is that Bush’s single most enthusiastic big money supporter was a company built on a foundation of quicksand — Enron.

It’s bad enough that the powers behind the throne are ruthless enterprises that care nothing for democratic institutions. What if the truth is that the modern American crony-run operations that really call the shots are not only undemocratic but incompetent as well? It’s literally the worst of all possible worlds.

Corporate Welfare Queens

Yglesias posts this shocker via Marshall:

The Bush administration’s audacious plan to rebuild Iraq envisions a sweeping overhaul of Iraqi society within a year of a war’s end, but leaves much of the work to private U.S. companies.

The Bush plan, as detailed in more than 100 pages of confidential contract documents, would sideline United Nations (news – web sites) development agencies and other multilateral organizations that have long directed reconstruction efforts in places such as Afghanistan (news – web sites) and Kosovo. The plan also would leave big nongovernmental organizations largely in the lurch: With more than $1.5 billion in Iraq work being offered to private U.S. companies under the plan, just $50 million is so far earmarked for a small number of groups such as CARE and Save the Children.

[…]

European officials, and even some prominent Iraqi dissidents, have reacted to the current U.S. plans with disbelief. They charge that efforts to keep the U.N. and non-U.S. contractors on the sidelines will delay reconstruction in Iraq and stir deeper ill will toward Washington. Some U.S. humanitarian groups charge the Bush administration has downplayed the difficulty of the postwar work in the hopes of scoring some quick public-relations points.

[…]

Much of the heaviest work will fall to U.S. companies through a growing web of contracts with the Pentagon and the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID is expected this week to pick the prime contractor for a $900 million job rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure, including highways, bridges, airports and government buildings. The agency is also contracting for five other large jobs, worth a total of between $300 million and $500 million, administering Iraq’s seaport and international airports, revamping its schools and health-care system, and handling large scale logistics such as water transport. The Army Corps of Engineers is also taking bids for work worth up to $500 million for building projects such as roadways and military barracks. Additional contracts to refurbish Iraq’s neglected oil industry would likely be handled through the U.N., which currently administers Iraq’s oil exports.

Four groups of U.S. companies are competing for the $900 million contract, which was put out for bids in secret last month. The companies were picked under rules that allow U.S. agencies to skirt open and competitive bidding procedures to meet emergency needs. All have done government work for years and have deep political ties to Washington. Vice President Dick Cheney once served as head of Halliburton Co., whose subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root is part of one bidding consortium.

Other big bidders are Bechtel Group Inc.; Parsons Corp., which has allied with Brown & Root; and Louis Berger Group and Fluor Corp., which are bidding as a team. These companies made political contributions of a combined $2.8 million between 1999 and 2002, more than two-thirds of which went to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group. Bechtel was the largest single donor, having given $1.3 million in political contributions.

[…]

The U.S. postwar plans for Iraq, being directed by the new Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in the Pentagon, are striking in their scope and intended speed. The administration’s plan to rehabilitate the Iraqi school system, for example, envisions the chosen contractor sending in teams to obtain payroll lists and assess teacher salaries just as U.S. military forces secure parts of Iraq, according to a 10-page USAID contract proposal that went out to companies last month. The contract, officials say, could total $100 million, and will cover five pilot programs for “accelerated learning” to be launched within three months, and then rolled out nationwide within 10 months. Only a third of Iraqi children now enroll in secondary school, but within a year the contractor will have “all children back in school.

I see. Sure. Piece of cake.

I hear there are quite a few former Enron executives who are “at liberty.” They should be brought in immediately to show some of that good ole Murikan know-how. Lord knows we have oodles of Americans who have the requisite knowledge of Iraqi culture. We should be able to bring this one in under budget and ahead of schedule, no problema.

I’m awfully relieved, though, that President GI Joe is eradicating evil and terror because it sure seems like it would be a teensy weensy bit dangerous for all those American targets there in Iraq if he doesn’t. It’s damned lucky that he has the whole world on our side so we won’t have to keep hundreds of thousands of troops there to protect the corporate welfare queens from those pesky suicide bombers.

Jesus. This just keeps getting better and better…

A River Of Refugees

Seth D. Michaels has a very good post up about the possible scenarios facing American troops within the next week or so.

Excerpt:

Picture this scenario: a war some decades in the future between the U.S. and Canada. Canada informs us that in three days, Chicago will be no more, so people had best evacuate. How would they all get out? Cars would be clogging the roads, people would leave on foot, panic would set in. Where would these people go? Stay in hotels? Stay with friends? Imagine the impact of three million people, proud owners only the possessions they can carry, suddenly thrust into the suburbs and countryside. What would they eat? Where would they sleep? How many would have no choice but to stay and be killed?

Now, consider that Baghdad is bigger than Chicago, and that the area around has less infrastructure – no motels, no ATMs, no supermarkets. This is the humanitarian crisis the U.S. will be faced with – not at some unknown hypothetical future point, but in a matter of ten days or so.

Again, despite the unprecedented incompetence that defines this administration so far, we have to hope against hope that they achieve virtual perfection in this military operation. If they screw this up as badly as they have screwed up the federal budget, national security and world opinion we are in big trouble. We must place our faith in the professional military and hope they are less bloodthirsty and more competent than their civilian bosses — and that they are allowed to run the show once the fighting begins.

The thought of Junior, Newt and Rummy in the war room scares the living shit out of me.

Let Me Introduce To You…

The one and only “Compassionate Conservatives!”

Where did all those exact same sized flags come from, anyway? Who paid for them?

Collateral Damage

British and American military commanders in the Gulf insisted yesterday that Saddam Hussein could not hide his elite forces inside Baghdad with impunity, saying they would target military units with “precision” while seeking to minimise civilian deaths.

The warning to the Baghdad regime will be seen as preparation of world public opinion for potential heavy loss of life among the Iraqi population in the event of US and British troops having to fight house-to-house in urban areas.

[…]

Gen Franks told ABC News: “The one who holds the key to civilian casualties . . inside Iraq is Saddam Hussein. We continue to see examples of the placement of military command and control, and military weapons, close to hospitals and close to schools and close to mosques and that sort of thing.”

He said that targets where civilian lives were at risk were not “off-limits” but “one takes a very careful look at that and balances cost and reward.”

Since Newtie and Strangefeld have apparently been fine tuning the battle plans, (they both watched “The Longest Day” more than 6 times, so they are experts) I have the sickening, sinking feeling that the actual war may end up being as fucked up as the non-diplomacy leading up to it.

God, I hope not. The only thing we can hope for at this point is that it is short and successful with a minimal loss of life. A unilateral preventive war waged by the most powerful military the world has ever known against a weakened dictatorship has almost no legitimacy as it is. If it requires a massive loss of life it will likely be looked upon by history as a war crime.

If you are a praying type, pray for a very quick victory.

Commander In Chief

Our Supreme Omniscient Commander of Good went out of his way after 9/11 to tamp down any vigilantism against American Muslims. But French people in America should not expect that he will show the same forbearance. In fact, just last week he spoke to regional reporters and made it clear that he endorsed the backlash against the French:

With the Mexican press full of a debate over the ramifications of a vote against the resolution, Bush added, “But, nevertheless, I don’t expect for there to be significant retribution from the government.”

His emphasis was on the word “government,” raising the possibility of adverse reaction to Mexico from the American business community and average citizens.

Making that point, he cited what he called “an interesting phenomena taking place here in America about the French.”

With many Americans unhappy at French resistance to a war in Iraq, the president said there has developed “a backlash against the French, not stirred up by anybody except by the people.”

Anyone who says the man doesn’t have leadership qualities isn’t looking in the right place. Atrios found this article from Houston:

For Francoise Thomas, the anger against France for its continuing opposition to military action against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein hadn’t hit home until she read about it on one of her doors.

When Thomas took out the garbage Saturday morning, she saw red letters spray-painted on the garage door of her townhouse.

“Scum go back to France,” it read.

I guess Karl isn’t worried about the “French” vote.

Here’s More:

THE message scrawled on the side of an American bunker-busting bomb being wheeled out into the desert was blunt: “Fuque the French” had been scrawled on the side by a member of the US Air Force.

Under Siege

Calpundit highly recommends this piece by Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek and it is very good. In fact, even for someone as deeply mistrustful of the Bush administration as I it is shocking to read that every single country that has had dealings with the United States in the last year (except Britain and Israel who are probably lying) has been left feeling humiliated. Yowza.

Kevin then makes the following comment:

Zakaria’s observation that the most powerful nation in the world somehow feels as if it is “besieged” is a telling one. Time and again, when I try to figure out what is happening in America, I keep coming back to the palpable sense of fear that seems to envelop us. We are seemingly afraid of everything: child molesters, terrorists, street crime, sharks — in a way that is wildly out of proportion to the actual danger they present.

[…]

Our reaction to 9/11 has been the same. Instead of making use of the outpouring of support that we got in its aftermath, we have turned in on ourselves, and in the process we have changed from the flawed but generous nation that we are into a mean and paranoid country that lashes out at friends and enemies alike.

I have thought a lot about this question as well. I spent some of my grade school years in Kansas, where my father worked on the missile silos. Every single day at school we practiced diving under our desks in anticipation of a nuclear attack. When JFK was killed, the town I lived in went on nuclear alert. The assumption was that the Soviets had to be behind it.

But, I do not think there was the kind of pervasive paranoia and sense of fear that we see today. Maybe it was that many people had recent memories of war so they had a more philosophical perspective, I don’t know. Paradoxically, despite the fact that nuclear annihilation was an everyday concern, people didn’t seem to be afraid.

I think this current sense of being besieged stems in large part from the emergence over the last 10-20 years of the tabloid TV news media. In our insular society, where many people experience their community by watching the local news, the “if it bleeds it leads” directive makes people believe that they are inundated by crime and pestilence and deviant sex and everything else that a tabloid press has always used to sell advertising. I have seen polls that indicate that even when crime has gone down significantly, as it did during the late 90’s, people are still convinced that their community is drowning in crime. If you watch the 11 o’clock news here in LA, you are easily convinced that you are living in post-modern anarchy and that it is relentless and escalating even though statistics show otherwise. Fear is stimulating and stimulation is what gets people to pay attention in a sea of white noise and talking heads. It’s very hard to look away.

But, there is more to it than that. We are in one of those periods in which the paranoid style in American politics has become dominant. Listen to talk radio or watch cable news, the two most explicitly political forums in the electronic media, and the paranoia is palpable. This sense of being under siege is fed daily by the likes of Rush and the rest, who mercilessly pound home to their devoted listeners the idea that they are victims of a liberal, permissive culture that is trying to undermine their values and a bloated, consuming government that is trying to steal their money. Everything they care about is in danger of being invaded, overtaken and eliminated by the political opposition. Even those who do not listen are subtly influenced by the conversation in the background. It drifts through the body politic like smoke.

Strangely then, it’s within the safety of their living rooms and their cars that the profitable message of paranoia is drummed into the minds of the free people of the United States over and over and over again. America’s insularity is the instrument of its fear.

Convincing Evidence

Bill Schneider on CNN just justified the US defying the UN on Iraq by showing a list of other wars that were fought without UN approval. He summed up by saying something like It may be better to defy the UN than to seek its approval. The list?

France invading Algeria

Vietnam

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

The Falklands

Well now, I don’t know about you, but that list doesn’t exactly make me feel any better, particularly considering that the first 3 were unequivocal quagmires. Not to mention morally bankrupt.

Great Game

Kevin links approvingly to Emma’s interesting post about French motivation in opposing the invasion of Iraq and “how the game of nations is played.”

However, I’m afraid I think her assessment is entirely too cynical. Yes, Chirac is a snake and nations act out of their own interests. Much more than principle or morality, by necessity and because we are humans, always goes into foreign policy. Nobody with any brains is arguing that France is acting purely out of altruistic love of the Iraqi children or entirely because they have a moral objection to war. That would be a silly and naive position.

But, neither can it be discounted that France is a democracy and Chirac is responding to the will of his citizens. Perhaps public opinion is irrelevant to him, but one cannot prove it merely by assertion. There is every reason to believe that Chirac would find himself under the kind of pressure that Blair is under and has decided to take a different tack based upon his personal self-interest, which is how the system is actually designed to work. It’s hard to see that Chirac was particularly free under those circumstances to decide the issue based solely upon France’s oil interests in the mid-east or his ambition to lead the EU, even if he wanted to. If he were acting out of economic self-interest alone, Chirac would have held out for the best deal and then played ball. That is certainly what the Bush administration expected to happen.

I also think she gives short shrift to the notion that the “Old Europe” experience of the last century has left them with a genuine suspicion of grand global plans like the starry-eyed neocon dream of Pax Americana and that assessment does have some basis in morality. (Certainly, the German position is undeniably rooted in its moral culpability for WWII.) They all see their own security in terms defined by two world wars fought on their own soil and they rightly mistrust propagandist phrases like “benevolent hegemony.” Yes, that is “self-interest” but it isn’t necessarily cynical and it isn’t necessarily a hypocritical stance that would change if the players were different.

In other words, it’s not naive to believe that there is a mix of genuine democratic principle and hard edged self-interested realism in France’s position. That position, after all, is mirrored by far more countries than ours is and most of them do not have interests in Iraq that make it the least bit worth their while to side against the United States. Indeed, it cannot be seen as in the self interest of any individual nation. The U.S. is a powerhouse, both militarily and economically and there is little to be gained by a country like Chile or Mexico defying us on a war in a far off region in the world.

It is not believable to me that this large collection of democratic countries throughout the world are lining up against the US out of calculated individual self-interest alone. There are selfish motives involved in each, to be sure, but they are responding to their people and taking a big gamble that their collective power will serve to check what seems to be a very aggressive U.S. foreign policy doctrine. It’s a ballsy move that makes no real sense if there is not a deep seated feeling amongst these players that the US must be put on notice that we do not have unfettered support for these global ambitions.

That global alliance of the unwilling simply cannot be explained as another Great Game.