THE LESSONS FROM HISTORY: IRAQ AND THE WAR IN PHILLIPINES

has become fashionable to call the USA an empire. Whatever the term may mean to radicals and conservatives the fact remains the both groups do not see the present international overreach of the USA as imperial. I have some trouble accepting such generalities because they obcure certain hard ground realities. A better mway of phrasing the question would be: Does the USA have the stamina to be an imperial hegemon of the 21st century. With the war in IRAQ going nowhere and no exit strategy in sight, the daily body count increasing to catatrophic levels and the public acceptance level of Bush and his Bushmen decling by the day, a look at the history of the USA is in order. Consider the following points made by Niall [pronounced Niel] Ferguson in his Colossus:The Rise and Fall of the American Empire:Impressive military successA flawed assessment of local sentimentstrategy of limited war and gradual escalation of forcesdomestic turmoil over the unpopular and nasty warpremature political settlementdeclare victory and withdawSounds familiar. No we are not speaking of the Vietnam War. Afterall that war has still searing scars left to heal. We are referring to a much older war, one that is barely remembered.In 1898 American forces won a striking victory over Spain.The pretext for the war, like the WMD in the case of Iraq, was the accidental explosion in the battleship Maine. How could Spain be responsible for the explosion, is any body's guess. Mckinley, the then President spoke in words that would credit Bush and the Bushmen:I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight....I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance..and light came..(1) We could not give them back to Spain(2) That we could notturn them over to France or Germany our commercial rivals in the orient (3) They are unfit to govern themselves(%) There is nothing left to sdo but educate, civilise and Christianize the Fillipinos...Thus the evangelical rhetoric of Bush II has precedents in US history.The fact that the USA completely underestimated the Resistance led by Emilio Aguinaldo. The War to "pacify" Phillipines was a costlt war and American tactics in the Phillipines bears recall of what is happening in Iraq; Read what the General officer Commanding of the US Forces in the Phillipines, General Jacob Smith ordered his men:"I wish you kill and burn the more you kill and the more you burn the better you will please me... I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms. Max Boot The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power, New York 2002. pp.120.The point is that the rhetoric of freedom, civilization and democracy is only a smokescreen for what was an aggressive war based on perceived self interest. The Iraq war is no different."

Will the USA Repeat the same mistake in IRAN

George Bush II famously described Iran as part of the "axis of evil". Since then the situation with regard to Iran is perilously close to war. Had the ground reality on Iraq been different, there is no doubt that Bush and the Bushmen would have exported their version of "freedom and democracy" to Iran. Now that the USA is bogged down in an ever widening spiral of violence and destruction and the average mortality rate has increased to 7.5 soldiers per day and the average death toll amongst the civilians is 35 per day. This figure only means that any move on the part of the Bush administration to invade Iran will not have domestic political support. In any case US unilateralism only means that "international law" and "public opinion" account for so much nuisance value. There is no doubt that Iran is aggressively pursuing an uranium enrichment program whose only riason d'etre is the nuclear bomb. In fact by waging a brutal war of aggression on Iraq on the pretext that Iraq is on the verge of possessing the ABS weapons claim since disproved, the USA has provided legitimacy to every lawless regime to insure itself against the mindless American assault by brandishing nuclear weapons. In fact the non proliferation regime has now virtually collapsed due to US intervention.Now it is really a sobering thought that only 5 million Sunnis are inflicting unacceptable levels of damage to US troops. Just imagine the hostility of 70 million in Iran. Further, the Shia population of Iraq will not support an American invasion of Iran.The run up to the planned war on Iran is as stale as yesterday's news. First plant storied in the free-embedded media that Iran is developing the Atomic bomb and then selectively leak alleged links with Al Qaeda and then go to town with planted stories about oriental rulers who have no sense of responsibility. The pattern is distressingly familiar: Serbia and Iraq now Iran.The Bushmen have learnt one lesson from Iraq. They have learnt that in ground combat the US faces heavy odds. Hence the new game will be to use the shock and awe of areal bombardment.The show goes on.