Two good article pairs from the Asia Times:
Pepe Escobar:
The Roving Eye: Iraq and al-QaedaYet credible estimates of Iraqi deaths and severe injuries from the war run as high as several hundred thousand, and as Escobar points out:
This means that many Iraqis now know that in the name of their "liberation", the Americans have killed or maimed 200,000 people. When something like this happens, you don't need any help from al-Qaeda to fuel your anger.But is there really even an al-Qaeda acting as a directing force to the terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere around the globe, or has al-Qaeda merely become a myth and a rallying point for various local terrorist efforts? French Ministry of Defense expert Alain Chouet believes the latter to be the case, and further believes that the Bush administration's effort to highlight al-Qaeda as a key force in the world (and Iraqi) terrorism is a double-edged sword. Just as it allows the administration to continue to sell its "War on Terrorism" to the American people, so too does it allow small groups of local dissidents to identify with a greater cause, that of curbing and rolling back what is viewed as American imperialism.
As Pepe Escobar concludes:
As for a weakened, disabled al-Qaeda, it is definitely voting Bush next November. Al-Qaeda wants the Iraq occupation to be prolonged, with or without a puppet government: there could not be a better advertisement for rallying Muslims against the arrogance of the West.Al-Qaeda likely has little if any capability left in the United States to carry out another 9/11 scale attack. But even a small-scale attack in a major city before the election "would be like help from above for the Bushites", and a Bush re-election is the exact outcome needed to advance the myth of al-Qaeda.
David Isenberg:
The Costs of Empire"The United States now runs the risk, so familiar to historians of the rise and fall of Great Powers, of what might be called 'imperial overstretch': that is to say, decision-makers in Washington must face the awkward and enduring fact that the total of the United States's global interests and obligations is nowadays far too large for the country to be able to defend them all simultaneously."Imperial has since been replaced by "empire" in the halls of the administration, but the "overstretch" part remains; empires are very expensive to maintain:
David Isenberg looks a the plans being made and executed in the name of the New American Empire. The question isn't really whether we want one however, but rather whether we can even afford one if we do.
But while empire in all its imperial, multicolored, geopolitical hues may be an alluring sight, there is one thing to keep in mind. The process of creating and maintaining an empire, like making sausage or passing congressional legislation, is not a pretty process. In fact, it is costly, very costly, in terms of lives, money and liberty. It requires a large military establishment, which can consume a substantial, if not disproportionate amount of the national treasury. And it requires stationing and deploying forces around the world.
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