21 Years after "Shock & Awe," The chickens have come home to roost and the West has become if not a failed state a failed idea.
Twenty-one years ago, we destroyed Iraq. We obliterated a nation's infrastructure and people on the pretext of fudged intelligence that said Saddam Hussein- an unpleasant dictator had weapons of mass destruction. It was bullshit.
Twenty-one years ago, it was nauseating to watch the hubris of America and Britain pretend they were in Iraq to bring peace and democracy to the region. It was evident each time US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gave his daily briefing that the mission was for revenge, greed and hegemony, or as he said when asked to comment on the looting and violence that followed the fall of the Capital, "Stuff happens."
Stuff did happen, including the deaths of at least 500 thousand Iraqi civilians during that war. US and British forces were implicated in a litany of war crimes that included murder, rape, torture, and the use of depleted uranium ammunition against enemy forces.
Despite human rights groups and independent journalists who outlined thousands of potential crimes against humanity, the corporate press downplayed the incidences or framed them as individual crimes committed in the fog of war rather than state-sanction atrocities. That failure to prosecute war crimes against the leadership in that war emboldened today’s perpetrators of crimes of humanity including Putin and Netanyahu.
Two decades after the war, Iraq is a failed state where most of its population lives in dire poverty without access to proper housing, education or medical services. We did to Iraq what the Roman Empire once did to their geopolitical enemies; turn their lands into a desert and called it peace.
The Iraq War began the great unspooling of neoliberalism. Everything from the bank crashes, austerity, unaffordable housing, and the privatisation of healthcare can be laid at the feet of those who directed that war.
We didn't punish those responsible for Iraq. Not doing that gave carte blanche to those who followed after the war in government, business and corporate news media to do as they pleased. They knew all their actions would be held harmless by us as long as consumer choice was abundant and available with easy credit terms.
The only thing is our chickens of that war have finally come home to roost. The good times are now gone for the ordinary because of the cost of living crisis, the climate crisis, the COVID pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and Israel's war of collective punishment against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank which the West aids and abet like they were Myra Hindley. Israel fights this war in retribution for one day of horrendous atrocities committed by Hamas fighters inside Israel and has not only lost all perspective but their moral centre. It is a war that slipped into genocide the way night falls across the sky. It is a war that ensures either revolution or the end of any pretence of democracy for Israel and us.
Neoliberalism and American imperialism have driven us into a cul- de- sac that ends in authoritarianism.
There is no way out of this hell, but for ordinary citizens to fight back and begin to plan for the long years of civil disobedience, ahead. What's in front of us will be unpleasant because we can trust no politician, no mainstream news media platform. We must be distrustful of other news sources because the agenda of many influencers is self-enrichment at the expense of the truth and common sense.
We are in no man's land, and the struggle to safe ground will take decades- many of us won't make it. I know because of my age and co-morbidities, it is unlikely I will see the return of a decent and fair society. Still, I am heartened because- the road we are on is filled with comrades of like mind. It is not a time to despair but to gird oneself for the struggle ahead because civilisation hangs in the balance at this moment in history.
Sadly, it is hard to argue with your conclusions. A truly depressing time.
Your historical perspective is 99% correct. However, Israel has not “lost” its moral perspective, it never had one. Not can any group, organization, or country that believes it is inherently superior to all others. Your conclusions, sadly, are likely justified and evidence based.