Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The Iraq withdrawal and the continuing eruption of US militarism

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

The Iraq withdrawal and the continuing eruption of US militarism

Click here to access article by Bill Van Auken from World Socialist Web Site.

This is the best assessment of the current pull-out of uniformed US troops from Iraq that I have seen.

In Iraq itself, uniformed troops are being replaced by a new army in civilian clothes. A massive, fortress-like American embassy in Baghdad has been erected in a walled compound of 104 acres—larger than the Vatican—with two similar facilities having been opened as consulates in the southern oil center of Basra and the Kurdish capital of Arbil in the north.

Operating out of these American fortresses will be up to 17,000 personnel. They will include 5,500 armed military contractors.

Meanwhile, according to this report, the Empire's weapons industries look forward to big profits from selling weapons to the Empire's satrap in Iraq.