An Aversion to Peace

This news is a few days old but it is incredibly important.

Revealed: Saddam 'ready to walk away for $1bn'

This article will never be mentioned in the main stream American media.

At best it will be in a tiny paragraph on page 64 onf some little newspaper outfit's product in Baltimore, check that, Butte.

Bush will deny it, Limbaugh and Hannity will call it a liberal attack and blame liberals for (fill in the blank absurdity.) Amy Goodman will report it again as this article comes out of the U.K. The original report came out of Spain earlier in the week. The progressive blogosphere is all over it, but so what.

Bush loyalists will circle the wagons deeper and harder. Since when would an article revealing this type of information affect anything in Bush world? Over the past 7 years we've seen information revealed that would make the founding fathers of America explode in their graves.

A transcript of an eve-of-war conversation between President George Bush and former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar has revealed a previously undisclosed initiative to avert war in Iraq by spiriting Saddam Hussein out of the country.

How sad can it get. The entire Iraq war averted. Averting the war would not have allowed for shock and awe, the destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure to be rebuilt by corporate America, and essentially a good test run for implementing the entire privatization of Iraq. This is what Naomi Klein calls "Disaster Capitalism." See her new book "The Shock Doctrine", one of my new reading projects.

An essential quality of shock and awe is to create a sense of extreme fear, dis-ease, unbalance, and pliability in the Iraqi population. This is an essential part of implementing extreme privatization principles. For an example of this in America, see New Orleans.

Among other things in New Orleans, we see the destruction of the public school system, replaced by charter schools. Charter schools are private ventures and consequently they circumvent the need for a teachers union, good pay, benefits, and all that good liberal stuff.

No, Bush wanted shock and awe. Torture was part of the plan to subjugate and instill great fear in the Iraqis. How else to better manipulate the structures that affect their lives when they are powerless and complacent.

After all, wasn't that what happened in America after 9-11. Didn't a fearing and stunned America allow some of the most outrageous and egregious policies to be enacted on them including not only starting shock and awe but giving it a warm hearty blessing and approval. Remember Bush's approval rating after 9-11. People were so stunned they saw an impostor as if he were the real deal. That's the power of shock and awe.