Exclusively in the new print issue of CounterPunch

HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER: David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.

October 08, 2002

Iraq: It's About Globalization, Stupid

Iraq, It’s About Globalization, Stupid!

by JOSH FRANK

Corporate malfeasance and take-overs aren’t going to be the topics of debate in this fall’s election, in fact they probably won’t even be brought up. The war in Iraq on the other hand will be a top contender, and as usual the debate will be archaic and flat, with a dash of gun rights and abortion snaps. The general public will go on their daily lives and not notice that the war against Saddam is a war for the US economy, and the price will be paid with the blood of soldiers and innocents alike. This same blood could be compared to the sweat and tears millions of people throughout the world have shed as a result of our corporation’s never-ending grasp for cash, and this war is no different.

The mainstream debate about Globalization has so many facets and layers that the critics (myself included) have a tough time keeping up with them. This debate has been so greatly muted that the connections between war and global governance have not be dissected accurately.

We have to realize that the outcome of the proposed ” Iraq regime change” is not for humanitarian reasons, and not about terrorism; but about placing a friendly government in Iraq that will allow our corporations to start moving their oil tankers. In the last years of Clinton’s presidency Dick Cheney was lobbying on behalf of Halliburton to get the administration to press the UN to drop sanctions against Iraq. I find it hard to believe that only 3 or 4 years later, Dick and company don’t have any corporate interests in Iraq. Has Karl Rove so brainwashed us that we are unable to see past the “weapons of mass destruction?” Are our foreign policies not weapons of mass destruction in their own right?

Global dominance fashions itself in many ways; from trade agreement to loans, to war and government control. The war against Iraq is just one more puzzle piece in a collage of corporate take over that has plagued the earth for decades. We must oppose this war with as much vigor and pride as we have opposed the IMF and WTO cabals. Lies and deceit have flooded the public discourse, so those that know the truth have a responsibility to speak up. For if we don’t, we are as much to blame as the Democrats and Republicans, who are worried more about their re-elections, then the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be lost as a result this conflict. We cannot afford to sit silent any longer.

JOSH FRANK is a 24-year-old writer and activist living in Portland, Oregon. He can be reached at: frank_joshua@hotmail.com