(c)Carlos Latuff
From 'Shock & Awe' - To 'Aw, Shucks!'
[col. writ. 8/19/10] (c) '10 Mumia Abu-Jamal
With the withdrawal of some 50,000 U.S. troops from Iraq after nearly 7 1/2 years of carnage, mass destruction and death, we see that even powerful empires have limits.
The withdrawal of the world's last superpower from a nation shattered into pieces, and riven by ethnic and religious enmity, is in sharp contrast to the (quite literally) bombastic entry of the U.S. former U.S. President George W. Bush famously boasted of America's capacity to "Shock and Awe" both Iraq and the region with the world's most destructive forces.
Seven and a half years later, after years of deadly insurgency and crushing internecine warfare that pushed Iraq to the very brink of civil war, which killed thousands of U.S. soldiers, an uncounted number of Iraqis, and caused the flight of millions of Iraqis to enter the unenviable life of refugees, the war showed how an empire can come in like a lion, but leave like a lamb.
Iraq is a nation in shambles, its infrastructure is toast. Its politicians are little more than western tools, with a few revealing a feel for the breadth and scope of the nation.
Electricity, vital to a modern state, averages about 4 hours a day.
Its very existence, made possible by the U.S. invasion, changes the regions' geopolitical balance, but not the way Americans intended. The invasion led to the rise of a Shi'a state, in a sea of Sunnis, and thus it naturally buttresses Iran, a predominantly Shi'a state.
Thus, Shi'a strength and influence is augmented.
As Britain showed in India, and the USSR showed in Afghanistan, America is now showing in Iraq; empires, like people, can get tired.
--(c) '10 maj
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