Disappointments about the Iraq War and the neocons
Report By Angel Espinosa for UNGLUED
This week was released the Baker report, which author is related to oil companies as well as many of the U.S.A. Government ministers. This report doesn’t seem to add alternatives to the situation analysis that the specialists show from some time ago; a war very far from it’s end; there is not a clear way out for the conflict. The USA have difficulties to handle this situation for themselves and they don’t find (further than Saudit Arabia, Turkey and Israel) other allied countries for gradually achieve the zone’s stabilization in order to avoid such a bloodshed.
This report supports the concept of a gradual way out with the setting of a democratic government with the authority for deciding in the future what to do with the oil patrimony pf the country ( considering that the guardian of this democratic transition may be the main — beneficiario o destinatario — of this oil production).
Arriving to Santa Barbara for visiting M.V. and Jeremy in Christmas I’m also interested in getting to know one of the most beautiful U.S.cities. It has very large beaches with gorgeous landscapes that can be appreciated from the hills. It has an avenue by the sea with palm groves carefully distributed that brings a (paradise?) look to this part of the pacific coast. Neighbourhoods like “El Montecito” have some of the most expensive and luxurious houses which are very far from downtown, surrounded by extensive gardens covered with high bush fences that protect the place from strange observers. The roads are very wide and the distance are inappropriate for walking because it takes long time to go from a place to another and the public transportations is not as developed as it could be because the idea is that anyone has to have his own car. It is a zone of very dry weather, so the big gardens require very intensive irrigation systems in a place where the water is not cheap. Is common to see many workers on maintenance tasks, masons building new extensions of the houses, most of them of latin origin, many of them illegal immigrants, ("sin papeles") for sure.
At the same time there is a latin neighbourhood in another part of the city with smaller houses and a house with stores and places where to eat typical Mexican food.
It’s easy to think that maybe one of these luxurious houses of “el montecito” is inhabited by one of the chairmen of the oil companies that support the neocons.
Political power, water and oil consumption.
That afternoon, walking by the sea with MV and Jeremy we found a dock. On the beach we met a group of war veterans protesting against the Irak War.
They had put crosses on the sand exactly as if it were a big cementery. It were 2500 crosses as tirbute to each united states soldier that died in irak, a number that actually is rising to 3000, a number that passes the one of victims in the 9/11. Condoleeza Rice said some days ago in an interview that this number of dead soldiers is justified.
They have as information about the organizations that gather people who are against the war as well as statistics that show how expensive this war is for the American people:
- The USA utilizes a 25 % of the oil consumption of the world.
- The oil consumption will shift from 10.000.000 barrels a day to 17.000.000 barrels a day in the 2020 while the oil production will be lowering.
It was interesting for me to discover an independent media organization called “democracy now", leaded by a prestigious journalist, Amy Goodman who brings reliable information about what is happening in Irak.
At the same time, in Spain, in the channel 2 (cadena 2 de television española), on Sunday night there is a documentary serie called “otro mundo es possible” (another world is possible) in which prestigious writers like Jose Saramago, Eduardo Galeano, Jean Ziegler and journalists like Amy Goodman, Ignacio Ramonet ( director of the journal ” le monde diplomatique") give their points of view about the war.
All that I could see in this short visit to California was a reflex of the American reality from inside and it’s world context: by one side the politician sector ( the nocons.) justifying the permanence and the soldier’s lives wasting as well as the money expenditure in a battle whose bottom line is the thirst for oil; on the other side the soldier’s families and U.S. war veterans crying for their deads and shouting to stop the war thinking also in the lives of thousand of innocent iraki people. Very far from all that “noise” the ostentatious houses in a luxurious neighbourhood, as if they were trying to get rid of that reality, ingnoring it, spending big amounts of water, using the biggest cars comsumming lots of oil — maintaining the “status quo”.
I conclude that the U.S. society has a really wide range of points of view about this conflict, one of them (stopping this senseless war) that is more according with the common sense is stronger and stronger every day.
Is encouraging to know that in spite of the interested influence of the media and the insistence of the government in persisting with this war, American people is finally concerned about the mistake that it represents and the public is holding out against manipulation.
IRAK: 3000 DEAD SOLDIERS (in the north American side) = 18.000 lts. Of BLOOD
= 201.000 Kilograms of FLESH AND BONES.
This week was released the Baker report, which author is related to oil companies as well as many of the U.S.A. Government ministers. This report doesn’t seem to add alternatives to the situation analysis that the specialists show from some time ago; a war very far from it’s end; there is not a clear way out for the conflict. The USA have difficulties to handle this situation for themselves and they don’t find (further than Saudit Arabia, Turkey and Israel) other allied countries for gradually achieve the zone’s stabilization in order to avoid such a bloodshed.
This report supports the concept of a gradual way out with the setting of a democratic government with the authority for deciding in the future what to do with the oil patrimony pf the country ( considering that the guardian of this democratic transition may be the main — beneficiario o destinatario — of this oil production).
Arriving to Santa Barbara for visiting M.V. and Jeremy in Christmas I’m also interested in getting to know one of the most beautiful U.S.cities. It has very large beaches with gorgeous landscapes that can be appreciated from the hills. It has an avenue by the sea with palm groves carefully distributed that brings a (paradise?) look to this part of the pacific coast. Neighbourhoods like “El Montecito” have some of the most expensive and luxurious houses which are very far from downtown, surrounded by extensive gardens covered with high bush fences that protect the place from strange observers. The roads are very wide and the distance are inappropriate for walking because it takes long time to go from a place to another and the public transportations is not as developed as it could be because the idea is that anyone has to have his own car. It is a zone of very dry weather, so the big gardens require very intensive irrigation systems in a place where the water is not cheap. Is common to see many workers on maintenance tasks, masons building new extensions of the houses, most of them of latin origin, many of them illegal immigrants, ("sin papeles") for sure.
At the same time there is a latin neighbourhood in another part of the city with smaller houses and a house with stores and places where to eat typical Mexican food.
It’s easy to think that maybe one of these luxurious houses of “el montecito” is inhabited by one of the chairmen of the oil companies that support the neocons.
Political power, water and oil consumption.
That afternoon, walking by the sea with MV and Jeremy we found a dock. On the beach we met a group of war veterans protesting against the Irak War.
They had put crosses on the sand exactly as if it were a big cementery. It were 2500 crosses as tirbute to each united states soldier that died in irak, a number that actually is rising to 3000, a number that passes the one of victims in the 9/11. Condoleeza Rice said some days ago in an interview that this number of dead soldiers is justified.
They have as information about the organizations that gather people who are against the war as well as statistics that show how expensive this war is for the American people:
- The USA utilizes a 25 % of the oil consumption of the world.
- The oil consumption will shift from 10.000.000 barrels a day to 17.000.000 barrels a day in the 2020 while the oil production will be lowering.
It was interesting for me to discover an independent media organization called “democracy now", leaded by a prestigious journalist, Amy Goodman who brings reliable information about what is happening in Irak.
At the same time, in Spain, in the channel 2 (cadena 2 de television española), on Sunday night there is a documentary serie called “otro mundo es possible” (another world is possible) in which prestigious writers like Jose Saramago, Eduardo Galeano, Jean Ziegler and journalists like Amy Goodman, Ignacio Ramonet ( director of the journal ” le monde diplomatique") give their points of view about the war.
All that I could see in this short visit to California was a reflex of the American reality from inside and it’s world context: by one side the politician sector ( the nocons.) justifying the permanence and the soldier’s lives wasting as well as the money expenditure in a battle whose bottom line is the thirst for oil; on the other side the soldier’s families and U.S. war veterans crying for their deads and shouting to stop the war thinking also in the lives of thousand of innocent iraki people. Very far from all that “noise” the ostentatious houses in a luxurious neighbourhood, as if they were trying to get rid of that reality, ingnoring it, spending big amounts of water, using the biggest cars comsumming lots of oil — maintaining the “status quo”.
I conclude that the U.S. society has a really wide range of points of view about this conflict, one of them (stopping this senseless war) that is more according with the common sense is stronger and stronger every day.
Is encouraging to know that in spite of the interested influence of the media and the insistence of the government in persisting with this war, American people is finally concerned about the mistake that it represents and the public is holding out against manipulation.
IRAK: 3000 DEAD SOLDIERS (in the north American side) = 18.000 lts. Of BLOOD
= 201.000 Kilograms of FLESH AND BONES.
previously there was Ofrenda
The bootm line is that this war only follows the interest of a group of rich people. The power behind the power.
http://www.icasualties.org [submitted on 15 Sep 07]