Of Green Pigs and Dead Dictators

It appears that Bilmon has pulled the plug -- no more of his often so prescient commentary for his hungry fans.

Perhaps it's not burn-out as some at Moon over Alabama have supposed, perhaps it's the prescience which got to him. It must be terrible to be so right so often about so many terrible things!

Perhaps in 2007, the Year of the Green Pig, we in the West will have to start living in the reality of what we have been snarking about and the nightmares we have been scaring ourselves with.

For the first time since early November, when she commented on the sentencing of the old dictator and just two days before he got his neck stretched this morning, Riverbend returned with a post about Iraq and 2006.

What she has to say is chilling -- absolute terror and despair oozes between the lines. Imagine, having to look back on the 8 years of war with Iran and 12 years of sanctions from the West as a "Golden Age"!

She then poses an exceptionally terrifying question:

"...why this was all done? What was the point of breaking Iraq so that it was beyond repair? Iran seems to be the only gainer. Their presence in Iraq is so well-established, publicly criticizing a cleric or ayatollah verges on suicide. Has the situation gone so beyond America that it is now irretrievable? Or was this a part of the plan all along?" [my emphasis]

Indeed, "Why?"

Sadam has been hung and the Codpiece comments in a written note that this is an "Important Milestone" but will not in itself bring an end to the violence in Iraq. Now that is an insight you don't get every day!

The question is, will the ensuing chaos somehow be pinned on Iran as well as the Sunnis? Probably. Is the point of the charade to also destroy Iran? Possibly.

I don't know. It's insane, true -- but that is not necessarily a good argument when you consider the people running the show on our side!


We know that the Iraq invasion and occupation has always been about access to strategic oil reserves. In fact the same might be said about Afghanistan, the proxy wars in Somalia (although here it's minerals, not oil) and the upcoming struggle for Nigeria.

Therefore, breaking Iraq into bleeding pieces makes a certain mad Machiavellian sense. The Kurds can control the oil in the north as long as they "behave" while "we" withdraw to the south and concentrate on the oil there. The middle ground can bleed to death -- and the south too, as long as we can keep the oil -- the end result we can call democracy and the in-betweens birth pangs.

As for evil Iran, we bomb the shit out of them while seizing the most of their important oil and natural gas fields. Yeah, it's beyond crazy and insane, but it is being suggested in all seriousness as a wise and cool thing to do in a major neo-conservative magazine and people are neither puking or laughing -- they are nodding heads at such sage thinking.

I'm sorry, but 2007 looks like a bloody year, bloodier than 2006, and that's the truth.