Arturo Ui in Baghdad. posted by Richard Seymour

Say, Dogsborough, this place is quite a tip. Violent, chaotic, terrifying to a man. Looks like you could use some protection. I could just supply a few thousand storm troopers...:

THE American military is planning a “second liberation of Baghdad” to be carried out with the Iraqi army when a new government is installed.

Pacifying the lawless capital is regarded as essential to establishing the authority of the incoming government and preparing for a significant withdrawal of American troops.

Strategic and tactical plans are being laid by US commanders in Iraq and at the US army base in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, under Lieutenant- General David Petraeus. He is regarded as an innovative officer and was formerly responsible for training Iraqi troops.

The battle for Baghdad is expected to entail a “carrot-and-stick” approach, offering the beleaguered population protection from sectarian violence in exchange for rooting out insurgent groups and Al-Qaeda.

Further:

US forces would try to avoid the all-out combat that was used to subdue Falluja in 2004. “If you cut up the city into pieces neighbourhood by neighbourhood, you can prevent it from becoming a major urban fight,” said Gouré.

Jesus, what balls! Did you read that? Go and read it again. They, the war criminals who bombed a city to drive out some of its residents, then encircled it and prevented all males of fighting age from leaving (military age is ten and above for these guys), launched a bombing raid that destroyed the city, killed thousands, used horrifying chemical weapons in civilian areas, committed war crimes in a fucking hospital (because it was a 'propaganda outlet') - yes they, who did all that, will sincerely try their best not to pulverise Baghdad in the same fashion. Rather, they intend to cut it up into pieces, and destroy it piecemeal.

Of course, Baghdad really needs this shit right now. At the moment, it has just come bottom of an international survey assessing the world's most liveable cities; the morgue is overflowing daily; electricity is still only on four about two hours a day; the sewage treatment facilities are so bad that all of the waste from the Western half of the city is simply dumped straight into the Tigris, which is where Baghdad residents get their drinking water from; and the water system that was destroyed as a deliberate act of US policy during the 1990s isn't in great shape either.

For such a hateful 'solution' to these problems as that proposed by the occupiers of Iraq to be even comprehensible, you have to completely invert reality. Hence:

U.S. officials say they spend much of their time teaching modern democratic practices and personal responsibility to Iraqis raised in a system of favoritism, nepotism and pervasive corruption built during 24 years of deposed president Saddam Hussein's rule.

Ah, bless. US officials, totally innocent to such notions as favouritism, nepotism and pervasive corruption, are peripatetics, democratic sages guiding their dear pupils toward the bright day when they can assume "personal responsibility". Do you suppose they sit their students under an apple tree, pick up a copy of Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man and ignite fires in their poor, corruption-sozzled little minds? Perhaps they season it with a soupçon of von Humboldt and, just for those inclined toward religion, a sprinkling of Spinoza? Oh, they do, please say they do! It's just too wonderful. I am pink and merry at the thought, beyond example. When the occupation ends, there will be a Dead Poets Society moment. A grateful phalanx of Iraqis will stand atop their desks, waving off their ever-so-proud-but-sad-to-be-going instructors. O Captain, My Captain, our fearful trip is done!, they will cry, while departing Abu Ghraib masters singe the body electric. (In retrospect it perhaps isn't so surprising that the younger Walt Whitman was a fervent imperialist). Anyway, as I say - bless.

Oh, by the way, the US is building an embassy the size of Vatican City in Baghdad, with its own water-treatment plant, electricity generator, independent waste management (ho ho), and a population equal to that of a small town. Unlike the Vatican, however, the embassy will only exert temporal power.