Dahr Jamail | Who Benefits?

"This is as 9/11 in the United States," said Adel Abdul
Mahdi, a Shiite and one of Iraq's two vice presidents.

"This" being the Mosque bombing. Pretty heavy stuff. Let's think about this.

Concerning that bombing, here's an article which supplies an answer to a question that more people should be asking: Who stands to gain by inflaming Shia against Sunni?

I can't imagine the Iraqis themselves want a civil war. Who does? The only war most of them are interested in is a war to free their country from occupation.

The Occupiers, however, may have a desire to see Iraqis fight each other. How did the British, from such a tiny island, manage to get a worldwide empire, over vastly larger populations? Divide and conquer is what I've always heard.

The PNAC Plan for world hegemony is predicated on planting US bases around the world, particularly around the Middle East and in countries surrounding China. The US is not in the habit of constructing billion dollar military bases and then giving them away. After wanting a staging area in Iraq and control over its resouces, the US is not about to go home, no matter what Bush and his cronies might say. Ain't gonna happen.

Here are two possibilities:

(1) the US installs a government that can run Iraq to our specifications, allowing the US military to do whatever it pleases, whenever it pleases. This is more or less the plan over the past two years. Only a government that immediately extended an invitation to the US to remain was allowed to take power. However, the Iraqis, for some reason, didn't feel like accepting the puppet government as legit. The most unifying thing in Iraq today is the desire of virtually all indigenous parties to have the occupiers leave, immediately.

This poll taken in August 2005 by the British Sunday Telegraph for the Military, shows that Iraqis just plain don't want us there:

• Forty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are justified - rising to 65 per cent in the British-controlled Maysan province;

• 82 per cent are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops;

• less than one per cent of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security;

• 67 per cent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation;

• 43 per cent of Iraqis believe conditions for peace and stability have worsened;

• 72 per cent do not have confidence in the multi-national forces.

Poles said that's why the vast majority of Iraqis voted—they thought voting was a prerequisite to moving to the next step, which they hoped was Sending the Occupiers Home. The occupation actually has promoted unification between the Sunni and the Shia—against the occupation. So, the next most likely way to justify the continuation of the occupation is...

(2) an event (their Pearl Harbor? their 911?) which would divide and terrorize the country, and justify continuation of the occupation, simply to provide security for the population that the wretched US-trained Iraqi forces cannot.

Now that quote at the beginning of this post makes some sense...

"This is as 9/11 in the United States," said Adel Abdul
Mahdi, a Shiite and one of Iraq's two vice presidents.