US press echoes consensus in ruling elite to continue slaughter in Iraq

[IndianaGreen]

US press echoes consensus in ruling elite to continue slaughter in Iraq

By Patrick Martin
3 December 2005

The American ruling elite is inextricably committed to military victory in Iraq. That is the only conclusion to be drawn from the response of the major media to Bush’s November 30 war speech.

The most prominent editorial voices of corporate America, from the ultra-right Wall Street Journal to the New York Times, the leading voice of upper-class liberalism, despite disputes over tactics and methods, agree that there is no alternative to using whatever level of violence is required for the United States to remain in control of the oil-rich Mideast country.

The December 1 editorial in the Wall Street Journal was typically unrestrained in its celebration of the war, hailing Bush’s speech as a rededication of the administration to “complete victory” and a repudiation of the growing public disaffection with the war. “Our reading of history is that the American people will accept casualties in a war, even heavy casualties, as long as they think their leaders have a strategy to win,” the Journal declared, thus announcing its approval in advance of the increased bloodletting which continued occupation will produce.

The tragic human implications of the Journal’s glib endorsement of “heavy casualties” to secure US control over the region’s oil resources were driven home on Friday, when the government announced that at least 10 Marines had been killed by a single explosion in Fallujah. Meanwhile, the US military is preparing to slaughter hundreds more Iraqis in a new offensive in Ramadi.

The Journal praised the performance of Iraqi troops in Tal Afar, when mainly Shiite forces rampaged through the predominately Sunni city near the Syrian border. It called for strengthening the interior ministry, although that agency is now believed responsible for some of the worst atrocities, including the underground torture chamber in Baghdad uncovered last week when it was raided by US troops.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/iraq-d03.shtml