The Return of the White Man's Burden

["Johannes Schneider" <Johannes.Schneider@xxxxxxx>]

What we are seeing at the moment is a roll-back of the gains of the
anti-colonial struggle of the last century. It started in Bosnia and Kosovo,
which are under direct NATO control. In Iraq the US plan to install a dircet
military administration. Obviously the savages are not ripe for democracy.

Johannes

>From today's Wasington Post:

Full U.S. Control Planned for Iraq
American Would Oversee Rebuilding

By Karen DeYoung and Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writers, Friday, February 21, 2003; Page A01

The Bush administration plans to take complete, unilateral control of a
post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, with an interim administration headed by a
yet-to-be named American civilian who would direct the reconstruction of the
country and the creation of a "representative" Iraqi government, according
to a now-finalized blueprint described by U.S. officials and other sources.

[...]

The administration is particularly keen on averting interference by other
regional powers, and cites the "ability of people like the Iranians and
others to go in with money and create warlords" sympathetic to their own
interests, one official said. "We don't want a weak federal government that
plays into the hands of regional powers" and allows Iraq to be divided into
de facto spheres of influence. "We don't want the Iranians to be paying the
Shiites, the Turks the Turkmen and the Saudis the Sunnis," the official,
referring to some of the main groups among dozens of Iraqi tribes and ethnic
and religious groups.

A similar anxiety led to the decision to prohibit the Iraqi opposition based
outside the country from forming a provisional government. The chief
proponent of that idea, Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress,
was informed this week that any move to declare a provisional Iraqi
government "would result in a formal break in the U.S.-INC relationship,"
the official said.

Full:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37949-2003Feb20.html


~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.