The sacking of Baghdad

[Tim May]

On Friday, April 11, 2003, at 06:53  PM, Eric Murray wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 11, 2003 at 10:00:15AM -0700, Tim May wrote:
>> Baghdad will be a basket case for decades to come...
>>
>> The power vacuum as the old regime left, and as U.S. soldiers are
>> staying out of any police action, has given widespread looting.
>
> It seems as if we're standing by and letting it happen on purpose.
>
> Part of the plan to ensure Iraq's slave status for years to come?
>
> A way to make the bulk of the population yearn for
> any government, even a blatant US puppet state?
>


Something like this.

When we smashed Germany and Japan, those nations didn't burn and loot 
every major building, store, factory, etc. There may have been several 
reasons for this. For example, we accepted the formal surrender of both 
nations, leaving their "management" in place for at least the 
transition period (more so in Japan than in Germany, for various 
reasons).

This time around our government was so fixated on the eee-vils of 
Soddom (*) that we simply sought to destroy everything connected with 
the leadership...and they got the message and bugged-out, suddenly, 
perhaps well aware of the chaos it would throw the country and the 
capital into.

(* Strangely, there is far less build-up to why we proles should be 
hating Soddom than there was in the past. With the Iran hostages, there 
was a year or more of "one minute hates" devoted to why the "Ayotollah" 
was Satan Incarnate. Songs like "Bomb Iran," sung to the tune of the 
Beach Boys/Jan and Dean song "Barbara Ann." ("Bomb, bomb, bomb..., bomb 
Iran!") With Iraq 1, six months to prepare for war. This time, very 
little. Most Americans I know don't even hate Saddam all that much. 
Sure, he's a dictator like dozens we have seen. So?)

The vacuum in Baghdad, Mosul, Basra, etc., is like the vacuum after the 
sacking of Rome. Or the sacking of Baghdad by the liberators from the 
east 800 or so years ago.

In fact, this whole thing is just that, the sacking of Baghdad.


--Tim May