Mission Impossible Again

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE AGAIN

On May 1, 2003, George Bush posed for perhaps his most celebrated photo-op. Like the staged toppling of Saddam’s statue in Baghdad, the event was orchestrated by the most hyperactive propaganda apparatus in operation since the fall of Nazi Germany (Hitler had Goebbel’s the Liar, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld, Triumvirate, largely outsources to “public relations” firms like John Rendon’s and the Lincoln Group). Absurdly uniformed, the Commander in Chief, a notorious draft dodger, was flown onto the deck of an aircraft carrier where he declared to the world “mission accomplished” in Iraq. Three years and some 2,500 dead U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of dead Iraqis later, “mission accomplished” looks more like Mission Impossible. Iraq’s vast oil reserves have yet to be made secure for the United States of Unocal and Exxon-Mobil.

To celebrate the anniversary of this infamous and increasingly embarrassing proclamation, Bush’s speechwriters decided that rather than acknowledge the utter failure of the Empire’s mission to annex the site of the world’s first great civilization for American corporate interests, our little Napoleon of Texas should declare May 1, 2006 a “turning point” in this venture (which Bush now publicly admits will outlast his presidency unless, of course, the Triumvirate can manage to start WWIII with a nuclear bombardment of Iran, declare a state of emergency, flush what is left of the Constitution down the toilet and retain power indefinitely). For, after months of post-election stalemate and back room arm-twisting, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Shia bloc’s nominee for Prime Minister of Iraq, was “stepped down” and replaced with fellow pro-Iranian Dawa party member Jawad al-Maliki. Jaafari, strongly backed by the anti-U.S. “radical cleric” Muqtada al-Sadr, is a literate, soft-spoken man with socialist inclinations and an alarming interest in the work of Noam Chomsky. Maliki is seen as being much more favorable to the invader’s plan for a free (market) Iraq. Hence Bush: “We believe this [Jaafari’s ouster] is a turning point for the Iraqi citizens and it’s a new chapter in our relationship.” Chapter 11 perhaps.

This, of course, is not the first, nor will it be the last turning point in this immoral and illegal invasion and occupation of a sovereign state committed in the name of the American People for selected corporate interests (Bechtel, Halliburton, big oil-the usual suspects). The June 2004 “transfer of sovereignty” from Dictator Bremer to the jackals-as exiled Iraqi poet Saadi Youssef calls the U.S.-appointed Governing Council charged with fashioning our date-palm republic-was Bush’s first “turning point”. The 2005 election-has anyone on earth ever heard of a democratic election held in country under military occupation?-was the second. Each successive right turn tightens another screw on the lid of the coffin called Iraq. We have been turning these screws for fifteen years: from Daddy Bush’s made-for-TV fireworks display, through B.J. (blow job) Bill Clinton’s massive bombing campaigns and genocidal sanctions (was he on the phone with Madeleine “it [500,000 dead Iraqi children] was worth it” Albright when Monika was giving him that famous hummer?) to the butchery of the current “operation”- originally dubbed Operation Iraqi Liberation until someone, presumably in the State Department where reading beyond a 4th-grade level is still required, noticed what the acronym spelled out. Is it necessary to bury Mesopotamia, to obliterate the origins of “civilization” from world historical memory, so that the United States of Amnesia can place itself at a new origin at the “end of history”? With this most recent turn we-for yes, it is we the people who are ultimately responsible for allowing this brutality to be carried out in our name-have completed a vicious circle and arrived at the eternal return of the same: deception, death and debt. With every season turn, turn, turn.

-Steven Jones