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Headlines : IraqAmerica's Deadly Shock Doctrine in Iraq
This article is excerpted from Naomi Klein’s new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, in which she explains how individuals, groups and even entire societies can be forced into acquiescence by the wholesale destruction of their personal identities – a horrible bastardization of Milton Friedman’s concept of economic “shock therapy.”
The unanticipated violence that now engulfs Iraq is the creation of the lethally optimistic architects of the war — it was preordained in that original seemingly innocuous, even idealistic phrase, “a model for a new Middle East”. The disintegration of Iraq has its roots in the ideology that demanded a tabula rasa on which to write its new story. And when no such pristine tableau presented itself, the supporter of that ideology proceeded to blast and surge and blast again in the hope of reaching that promised land.
[Posted By Heatscore]Republished from AlterNet
When the Canadian citizen Maher Arar was grabbed by US agents at JFK airport in 2002 and taken to Syria, a victim of extraordinary rendition, his interrogators engaged in a tried-and-tested torture technique. “They put me on a chair, and one of the men started asking me questions … If I did not answer quickly enough, he would point to a metal chair in the corner and ask, ‘Do you want me to use this?’ I was terrified, and I did not want to be tortured. I would say anything to avoid torture.” The technique Arar was being subjected to is known as “the showing of the instruments,” or, in US military lingo, “fear up”. Torturers know that one of their most potent weapons is the prisoner’s own imagination — often just showing fearsome instruments is more effective than using them.
As the day of the invasion of Iraq drew closer, US news media outlets were conscripted by the Pentagon to “fear up” Iraq. “They’re calling it ‘A-Day’,” began a report on CBS News that aired two months before the war began. “A as in airstrikes so devastating they would leave Saddam’s soldiers unable or unwilling to fight….
Posted by Heatscore
A jaded Raskolnikov waiting in disgust for this sick society's imminent paradigm shift.
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Posted by GWHunta on Tuesday, June 19th 2007
heh, gotta love it
Naomi has a Shock Doctrine Web Site and there’s a page isolating the facts delivered in the video — which I personally found very useful.
I was once left speechless when a naive said outright and wide-eyed that Margaret Thatcher was a great leader. Now I can say “well, she tripled the rate of unemployment and increased the number of poor by 100% — so that certainly deserves some sort of prize”.
Handy facts fast. Bam bam bam, The Way of The G.
Boris Yeltsin also gets his own little string of bullets — although that guy was just about as hapless as any puppet head of state could be.
It’s a bit weird that Naomi accepts the White House version of 9/11.
Just so, I personally think it is entirely possible that the Empire not only calculated for the looting of Iraq but triggered agents to make sure that it happened expeditiously.
I can’t imagine how, after all her research, Naomi could have come out feeling that that kind of thing was too improbable.
It’s not like the hollowing out of the US government came to any kind of screeching halt after 911. Quite to the contrary, surely.
That should be on a t-shirt… nice…
You wouldn’t want to miss Naomi’s deconstruction of America’s Deadly Shock Doctrine in the United States.
The New Dotcom Bubble is the Privatized Homeland Security Bubble. The Guardian seriously hides the content of the piece with a Zero Information Title but don’t be fooled.
Be afraid, my friends, be very afraid.
More handy facts bam bam bam — from Naomi’s Other Post (Why Failure Is The New Face of Success (The Guardian, 12 September 2007).
During the first Gulf war in 1991, there was one contractor for every 100 soldiers.
1 :: 100
At the start of the 2003 Iraq invasion, the ratio had jumped to one contractor for every 10 soldiers.
1 :: 10
Three years into the US occupation, the ratio had reached 1:3.
1 :: 3
Less than a year later, with the occupation approaching its fourth year, there was one contractor for every 1.4 US soldiers
1 :: 1.4
For all you “Yay the British have split” fans —
OPEN QUOTE
British soldiers in Iraq are . . . far outnumbered by their countrymen working for private security firms at a ratio of 3:1
When Tony Blair announced in February 2007 that he was pulling 1,600 soldiers out of Iraq, the press reported instantly that “civil servants hope ‘mercenaries’ can help fill the gap left behind”, with the companies paid directly by the British government.
END OF QUOTE Got that?
3 :: 1
I can’t tell you how much pleasure it will give me to see America leave the desert with its tail tucked between its legs. This sort of outrageous hubris makes me believe many other nations feel the same way—EVERYONE likes to see the bully get his ass handed to him