Shocked and awed into 'freedom'

[rainbow4321]

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GC22Ak06.html

Two years after being shocked and awed into "freedom", freedom on the ground is a meaningless concept for large swathes of the Iraqi population. Sunnis and Shi'ites alike tell Asia Times Online of a brutalization of every-day life.

Highways in and out of Baghdad are suicidal: the Americans can't control any of them. Anyone is a potential kidnapping target, either for the Sunni guerrilla or criminal gangs. Officials at the Oil and Electricity Ministries tell of at least one attack a day. Oil pipelines are attacked and distribution interrupted virtually every week. There's a prison camp syndrome: almost 10,000 Iraqis incarcerated at any one time, in three large jails, including the infamous Abu Ghraib. There's also an Abu Ghraib syndrome: all-round denunciation of torture, electroshocks and beatings. The Americans and the Iraqi police proceed with the same "round up the usual suspects" tactic: but even if the "suspects" are not part of the resistance, their families are always well taken care of, so they inevitably join the resistance actively when they leave jail.

In contrast, life inside the Green Zone bubble is totally virtual. There's no government yet - the elections were on January 30 - so the Sunni guerrillas keep up the pressure, while popular disillusionment with the political process is on the rise. Prime-minister-in-waiting Ibrahim Jaafari of the Da'wa Party recently said he would favor direct elections for prime minister and parliament - not the American-imposed indirect method: it was not good enough to placate popular impatience.

Iraq is a crucial pawn in the US oil strategy - which includes the former Yugoslavia (now with a permanent US military base in Kosovo, right in the pipeline route from Russia and the Caspian to Europe); the Caspian and Venezuela (major oil reserves); Afghanistan (now also with a permanent US military base); Ukraine (a crucial pipeline route to Europe); Moldova (oil reserves); Iran (oil reserves); and Syria (on the route of a pipeline through which Israel wants to get Iraq's oil).