BY BILL DUNNE (2004)

The U.S. invasion of Iraq was a no-doubt-about-it crime of imperialism. So is the continuing U.S. military occupation of Iraq without even the fig leaf of approval by other imperial powers or their vassals and sycophants. “Shock and awe” inflicted death and destruction on the Iraqi people as well as no few working class American people and elicited revulsion and condemnation from most of the rest of the world’s people.

What prompted the minority ruling elite of the U.S. to leap into this quagmire? What motivated it to accept the huge political costs of such a risky adventure? vspace=”2″ Was it an altruistic desire to protect the world from weapons of mass destruction? Was it some noble democratic impulse to free the Iraqi people from a vicious dictator and build a shining democratic model state for people in the oppressive autocracies of the region to emulate? Was it a battle in the war on terrorism? Superficial cases have been made for these and other justifications for the U.S. seizure of a sovereign country. Or was it mere greed for Iraqi resources and labor and fat reconstruction contracts as surface events suggest? A deeper look at the circumstances indicates it was something else entirely.
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