eaglebonewhistle.com
Bad Government Rocks
Susan Bright
April 13, 2003
I write just as the US invasion of Baghdad careens into chaos, orchestrated by militarists who have no intention of keeping peace, protecting civilians or the infrastructure of the city. US troops set up check points.
Interesting that the US has protected the Ministry of Oil but leaves embassies, United Nations humanitarian headquarters, telephone systems, water lines, even hospitals unprotected. Donald Rumsfield, blithely ignoring the provisions of the Geneva Convention as he and the President ignored international law which forbids invading the territory of a sovereign nation, has called this "the healthy transition of a liberated people." American media gives play to the big lie, as ever. Machaevelli would be proud.
Fortunately, we have alternative news sources, which offer a more realistic perspective. Robert Fisk afoot in Baghdad sends piercing word pictures of civil chaos and human suffering to the world. A French independent journalists association has begun legal work to hold the United States liable for war crimes against journalists. Starhawk writes from Rafah, a second international peace keeper shot this week, this one killed, while trying to pull small children out of direct tank fire. It's difficult to imagine a worse form of government that the Occupation of Palestine.
In Africa last summer I realized bad government and even civil chaos are of no great concern to global capitalists , unless their profits are threatened . They like bad government. It draws the blame from them when their policies devastate civil society.
I visited the source of the Nile River in Uganda, a sacred and holy place, covered up by a dam which generates huge stores of electricity. The nearby countryside remains without power, (or food). The people in the city bootleg (30 families to a single extension cord) to get infrequent light and power for "homes" with no running water, sewage systems, often not even windows or doors. Where, you ask, does the electricity - born of the sacrifice of one of the most sacred water sources on earth - go?
It follows lines and polls out of the country, is sold to service the debt. "How can a government call itself that when it provides no infrastructure," our Taxi driver noted as the vehicle disappeared into a pot hole as big as a small car. Uganda is a country run by a military dictator, a country full of jousting open trucks full of armed men in different uniforms, a country which enjoys more freedom of the press than America has in years. Of course the world blames African leaders for bad management of the aid we give them - after we have drained, stolen and finessed everything of value from their countries.
While I was there, just 20 miles away from the Makerere University in Kampala, the Lords Liberation Army attacked a small village police station. These are the ones who kidnap children and then at gunpoint force them to chop up and eat the body parts of their parents and siblings. Joseph Krony, the leader, is at least as big an asshole as Saddam Hussien. He's killed more than a million people in Uganda, the Congo, and the Sudan. How come we don't take him out? No oil? They have water though, and the IMF is working on a new dam at the source of the Nile that will destroy an astoundingly beautiful surge of rapids and water falls. Colonial investors tied up some of the earth's most fertile land long ago. Uganda has nothing we want so don't wait for FOX News to make Krony the showdown target of the season.
I've come to think there is no better way to define this administration than as a coterie of global capitalists, mostly profiting from oil, and munitions - which they deploy and then draw billion dollar contracts to clean up after. This is blatantly insane from a human point of view.
Look at the big picture. This administration has done nothing but fan the fire of horror and civil strife in Palestine and Israel. Even at home, bad government appears to be the goal of an administration which doggedly deconstructs programs to protect our environment, women's rights, civil rights, the economy, health for children and seniors, funding for first responders, veterans benefit programs, our electoral process, and even rips up the Constitution. International law, unless it protects corporate investments under free trade agreements from regulation by nation states, is of no use to this administration. Law is the essential fabric of civil society.
So why be surprised when civil chaos is applauded by our Secretary of Defense? It's part of the plan. Bad government rocks.
(c)Susan Bright, 2003
Permission to reprint for not-for-profit purposes.eaglebonewhistle.com