Lord of the Manor: US foreign policy in Iraq & Afghanistan
(To see a video of me interviewing a Afghan terrorist on "The Jane Stillwater Show," click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve0ie0ABDEg )
(To see a video of me interviewing a Afghan terrorist on "The Jane Stillwater Show," click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve0ie0ABDEg )
I'm not really sure if my latest theory about Iraq and Afghanistan is correct -- but if it quacks like a duck, then I say let it fly. Here's my theory: That the folks in Washington seem to want to milk both Iraq and Afghanistan for all they are worth financially -- but from a safe distance. It's like that old lord-of-the-manor, castle-and-peasant trick. Build a huge castle on your fiefdom, squeeze the peasants dry until they scream and then retire back into the mega-base, er, I mean, castle again whenever things get too hot. Does this theory sound right?
I hate research and I may have to google all this stuff to get backup evidence but here's what I've come up with so far:
1. Everyone knows that Iraq has oil -- but what the freak does Afghanistan have that has kept everyone in Washington so fascinated with the place? I couldn't figure this one out for a really long time. The pipeline? Well maybe.... I know! It's the poppies!
There's a HUGE traffic in opium poppies coming out of Afghanistan. Somebody has to be making a profit on its opium sales and we know it isn't the Afghans or they wouldn't be living in such abject poverty. They'd all be sitting pretty and their country wouldn't be all hovering down at the bottom of the wealth-of-nations list next to Haiti and the DRC. Hell, they'd probably even have a seat on the Security Council.
And the Taliban ain't getting the poppy money either. Those guys are living in CAVES.
So who buys this stuff? And who profits? Europe and America. Ever since the U.S. lost most of its manufacturing, one of the biggest industries left to us appears to be illegal drugs. Am I right on this one or not?
According to RAWA, "Afghanistan now supplies over 90 percent of the world’s heroin, generating nearly $200 billion in revenue. Since the U.S. invasion on Oct. 7, 2001, opium output has increased 33-fold (to over 8,250 metric tons a year). ...Common sense suggests that such prolific trade over an extended period of time is no accident, especially when the history of what has transpired in that region is considered. While the CIA ran its operations during the Vietnam War, the Golden Triangle supplied the world with most of its heroin." And after the U.S. took over Afghanistan? “Within two years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world’s top heroin producer.”
Okay. So we apparently gots Afghanistan replacing the Golden Triangle as the biggest source of illegal drugs in the world -- with the possible exception of Columbia in South America, another CIA stronghold.
Bottom line: Afghanistan is a cash cow -- if you know how to milk it right.
2. Iraq. And we all know about Iraq. Tons of oil. But are the peasants getting any of the benefits? Not. Many Iraqis -- if not most -- are currently living in poverty. I've been to some places in Anbar province that are poorer than poor. So who exactly IS getting Iraq's oil profits? Ask Paul Bremer.
3. Mega-bases are being constructed in both Iraq and Afghanistan. From Bagram AFB and to Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan, the place has been pretty much castled. And from its Camp Victory to its Balad AFB, Iraq has been castled too. Now. Flash back in your mind to those cheesy dioramas of feudal Europe that we used to make in fifth grade. See, there's the castle. See, there's the serfs.
Based on the above-cited information, there seems to be a trend going on in these two countries that supports my new theory nicely. "But Jane," you might ask. "So what?" So this: All that castle-ing stuff that is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq is about giving more power to America's Lords of the Manor. Those "wars" that we got tricked into fighting weren't about Democracy or even Saddam or Osama after all.
Afghanistan used to be a rather advanced country. Education was valued there. Women went to college. They had schools. They had jobs. They had roads. And then Afghanistan got reduced to rubble during the USSR invasion and Charlie Wilson's War and the power-vacuum aftermath that resulted. Afghanistan became positively medieval, feudal. So doesn't it seem fitting that America should become Afghanistan's new "Lord of the Manor"? With castles and all.
And as for Iraq? Mega-bases apparently make sense there too. You gots a population that is prone to fighting among itself like peasants. So why not have a "Lord of the Manor" there too? Why not seize the moment.
And look what is happening in America right now as well. We too are all squabbling among ourselves. The wingnuts are all talking about staging a Revolution. "Go for it!" I say. And then in the rubble that is left after that, we also will probably end up with a few "Lords of the Manor" -- who will then be able to siphon off our country's wealth unrestricted. And America will also have lots of mega-bases as well.
PS: Speaking of drugs, my friend JoAnne just sent me an e-mail on the subject. "Of course America wants to control the drugs in the world," wrote JoAnne, "since we consume most of them! The Wall Street Journal said about two weeks ago that Mexico has made about 40 different types of drugs (weed, heroin, opium, meth, etc.) legal in small quantities there because their country was simply falling apart over drug wars. My guess is they want to stop the war at the street level where every thug is now fighting for turf. Imagine that -- making drugs legal so there's no more criminal element in the business."
Maybe they should do that here in the U.S. too -- except that Big Pharma would probably get its knickers all in a twist when marijuana starts to out-sell all its big money-makers like Prozac and Welbutrin.
I hate research and I may have to google all this stuff to get backup evidence but here's what I've come up with so far:
1. Everyone knows that Iraq has oil -- but what the freak does Afghanistan have that has kept everyone in Washington so fascinated with the place? I couldn't figure this one out for a really long time. The pipeline? Well maybe.... I know! It's the poppies!
There's a HUGE traffic in opium poppies coming out of Afghanistan. Somebody has to be making a profit on its opium sales and we know it isn't the Afghans or they wouldn't be living in such abject poverty. They'd all be sitting pretty and their country wouldn't be all hovering down at the bottom of the wealth-of-nations list next to Haiti and the DRC. Hell, they'd probably even have a seat on the Security Council.
And the Taliban ain't getting the poppy money either. Those guys are living in CAVES.
So who buys this stuff? And who profits? Europe and America. Ever since the U.S. lost most of its manufacturing, one of the biggest industries left to us appears to be illegal drugs. Am I right on this one or not?
According to RAWA, "Afghanistan now supplies over 90 percent of the world’s heroin, generating nearly $200 billion in revenue. Since the U.S. invasion on Oct. 7, 2001, opium output has increased 33-fold (to over 8,250 metric tons a year). ...Common sense suggests that such prolific trade over an extended period of time is no accident, especially when the history of what has transpired in that region is considered. While the CIA ran its operations during the Vietnam War, the Golden Triangle supplied the world with most of its heroin." And after the U.S. took over Afghanistan? “Within two years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world’s top heroin producer.”
Okay. So we apparently gots Afghanistan replacing the Golden Triangle as the biggest source of illegal drugs in the world -- with the possible exception of Columbia in South America, another CIA stronghold.
Bottom line: Afghanistan is a cash cow -- if you know how to milk it right.
2. Iraq. And we all know about Iraq. Tons of oil. But are the peasants getting any of the benefits? Not. Many Iraqis -- if not most -- are currently living in poverty. I've been to some places in Anbar province that are poorer than poor. So who exactly IS getting Iraq's oil profits? Ask Paul Bremer.
3. Mega-bases are being constructed in both Iraq and Afghanistan. From Bagram AFB and to Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan, the place has been pretty much castled. And from its Camp Victory to its Balad AFB, Iraq has been castled too. Now. Flash back in your mind to those cheesy dioramas of feudal Europe that we used to make in fifth grade. See, there's the castle. See, there's the serfs.
Based on the above-cited information, there seems to be a trend going on in these two countries that supports my new theory nicely. "But Jane," you might ask. "So what?" So this: All that castle-ing stuff that is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq is about giving more power to America's Lords of the Manor. Those "wars" that we got tricked into fighting weren't about Democracy or even Saddam or Osama after all.
Afghanistan used to be a rather advanced country. Education was valued there. Women went to college. They had schools. They had jobs. They had roads. And then Afghanistan got reduced to rubble during the USSR invasion and Charlie Wilson's War and the power-vacuum aftermath that resulted. Afghanistan became positively medieval, feudal. So doesn't it seem fitting that America should become Afghanistan's new "Lord of the Manor"? With castles and all.
And as for Iraq? Mega-bases apparently make sense there too. You gots a population that is prone to fighting among itself like peasants. So why not have a "Lord of the Manor" there too? Why not seize the moment.
And look what is happening in America right now as well. We too are all squabbling among ourselves. The wingnuts are all talking about staging a Revolution. "Go for it!" I say. And then in the rubble that is left after that, we also will probably end up with a few "Lords of the Manor" -- who will then be able to siphon off our country's wealth unrestricted. And America will also have lots of mega-bases as well.
PS: Speaking of drugs, my friend JoAnne just sent me an e-mail on the subject. "Of course America wants to control the drugs in the world," wrote JoAnne, "since we consume most of them! The Wall Street Journal said about two weeks ago that Mexico has made about 40 different types of drugs (weed, heroin, opium, meth, etc.) legal in small quantities there because their country was simply falling apart over drug wars. My guess is they want to stop the war at the street level where every thug is now fighting for turf. Imagine that -- making drugs legal so there's no more criminal element in the business."
Maybe they should do that here in the U.S. too -- except that Big Pharma would probably get its knickers all in a twist when marijuana starts to out-sell all its big money-makers like Prozac and Welbutrin.
