Tuesday, December 15, 2009

And the Winner Is...

Nothing was the same for me after April 2003.

Growing up, I had always suspected my country was, if not hopelessly deranged, then surely in the grips of a malevolent elite. But the sight of my country's mass media and political elites raucously cheerleading a flagrantly illegal, unjust war of colonial annexation straight out of the late 19th century was more than just a passing shock.

No, it wasn't just the lies and mayhem of the invasion, or the carnage it triggered (carnage predicted by literally everyone who had ever studied Iraqi society). It was the deeply suicidal nature of the whole affair. On some deep level of its political unconscious, this Empire had decided to go to Central Asia to die.

But what goes around, most surely, surely comes around. The post-imperial circle is now complete:

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Iraq's oil auction hits the jackpot
By Pepe Escobar
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No, the oil revenues won't bring back the dead. But the Shiite crescent now has a chance to join Eurasia's developmental states.

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