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Iraqization of Venezuela Planned by the Trump Regime

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Iraqization of Venezuela Planned by the Trump Regime

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

US wars of aggression are among history’s greatest high crimes - responsible for vast destruction, countless millions of deaths, and immiserating entire populations.

Iraq is Exhibit A. US rage for dominance replaced the cradle of civilization with a giant rapacious free-trade zone - featuring tyrannical rule, violence, chaos, mass detentions, torture, mass impoverishment, elimination of social services, and overall deprivation.

Refugees International (RI) earlier said “Iraq continues to face long-standing large-scale displacement and pressing (unresolved) humanitarian needs.”

In 2017, it said 11 million Iraqis need humanitarian aid because of endless conflict, violence and displacement. Their daily needs remain “unmet.”

RT revisited Mosul, Iraq 18 months after the Trump regime raped and destroyed it on the phony pretext of combating ISIS the US created and supports.

Once the nation’s second largest city, it lies in ruins, a virtual ghost town, tens of thousands of its people massacred, a residence for its “living dead.”

One resident told RT “(y)ou can’t even imagine how difficult it is – no hospitals, no schools, no teachers…no basic services…no jobs,” nothing but mass destruction as far as the eye can see and dispair.

“We are like the living dead. We have a cemetery over there, but here it’s a cemetery for the living.” 

“Pot holes are everywhere. There are still corpses (rotting under rubble) everywhere, and if anyone brings humanitarian aid here, the local officials just steal it. They are all corrupt.” 

“There’s no reconstruction here. All their reconstruction efforts are just ink on paper.” The city resembles a moonscape. Residents regret having come back.

The rape and destruction of Mosul, Raqqa, Syria, and countless other cities, towns, and villages in nations the US attacked bear testimony to what imperial rage for dominance is all about.

Following Bush/Cheney’s 2003 war on Iraq, Paul Bremer was appointed economic czar, its chief executive, heading the so-called Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) - ruling by decree, Iraq colonized under US control.

Shock therapy was imposed on the nation and its people, the economic equivalent of destroying and plundering the nation to save it.

So-called Bremer orders mandated mass-privatization of state enterprises, deregulation, unrestricted free market access for US-led Western corporations, deep social spending cuts, and harsh crackdowns on nonbelievers, including imprisonments, torture, and executions. 

Iraq is a model for nation-creating, not nation-building, what existed for millennia destroyed, a blank slate replacing it.

The nation and its people were subjected to the most sweepingly swift political, economic, and financial shock therapy ever attempted - what shock-and-awe mass destruction made possible.

The transformation of Iraqi sovereign independence into a virtual US colony happened in weeks post-March 2003 - the nation open for business, its assets and enterprises sold on the cheap - everything but oil to come later.

Bremer was Bush/Cheney’s man in Baghdad, in charge of Iraq, Inc., 100 orders imposed to smooth the way for predatory Chicago School shock therapy.

Economic edicts comprised a virtual wish list for foreign investors. Corporate taxes were slashed from 45 - 15%. Foreign companies were allowed to own 100% of state assets, able to redirect profits elsewhere, including to tax haven countries.

Restrictions on imports were removed, investors given the right to sign deals and leases lasting 40 years.

Iraq became a bold experiment, including invasion, occupation, colonization, and transformation of the country into a free-market paradise.

Inside the bubble indeed was paradise, outside dystopian hell for ordinary Iraqis, no funding earmarked for them, nothing to build a sustainable economy, little or nothing for schools, hospitals, and vital infrastructure - other than to benefit foreign investors.

Jobs were destroyed, not created. Serf-like foreign workers were brought in and abused. Critically needed social services were eliminated.

Iraq became and remains a predatory capitalist laboratory for unrestricted pillage, a model for what Trump regime hardliners have in mind for Venezuela if Maduro is toppled.

The fate of the nation and its people are up for grabs. Without Sino/Russian intervention, Venezuela may become another US vassal state - its sovereignty lost, its resources plundered, its people exploited by a free-market paradise for foreign investors, at the expense of their rights, needs and well-being.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

 

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

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