The Bush cabal as Laurel and Hardy used to say, have gotten themselves into another fine mess. The invasion and occupation of Iraq was supposed to be a smooth orderly romp in the park. Instead it displays the omens of a protracted bitter struggle. Just as AmeriKKKa arrogantly went into Vietnam to uphold European imperialism foolishly underestimating the Vietnamese' will to resist foreign domination, so too have Bush and Co. underestimated the Afghani and Iraqi people's will and resolve.

US soldiers are dying on a daily basis in Iraq and now the spotlight is back on Afghanistan as hostilities flair up. Things are getting so hot the US propaganda machine can no longer blame escalating US casualties in both Afghanistan and Iraq on auto accidents or friendly fire.

In an article in the July 2 2003 online version of Financial Times an Op-Ed piece written by a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations called for the US to establish a Colonial Office. I suggest you read the piece at www.FT.com -- it addresses the real issue, imperial occupation, what must be done to "stabilize" Iraq. The writer Max Boot asserts the situation in Iraq should have been foreseen given the US involvement in other actions around the world.

Boot's perspective on Iraq is typical of a colonizer: arrogant to the point of dismissing the natural urge of people to defend their families and homeland against takeover by imperialist forces. He states quite candidly the imperialist intentions of Bush and Co , "The lack of preparation is astounding not only because the Iraq invasion had been long foreseen but also because America and its allies have run so many similar nation-building exercises in recent years: Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, East Timor, Kosovo, Afghanistan. Yet there has been little attempt to apply the lessons of those places in Iraq."

What lessons is he talking about? Haiti is still feisty thank goodness. The last I heard there is fierce resistance in Afghanistan; warlords hastened AmeriKKKa's withdrawal from Somalia; East Timor was no piece of cake. The jury is still out on Bosnia and Kosovo: despite seventy-some odd days of "shock and awe" NATO bombings, ground troops, and mercenaries are still needed in those countries to maintain "order" years later! So what lessons can be learned from these actions other than the possibility of long drawn-out animus and conflict a la Vietnam?

Bush and Co have bitten off more than they can chew especially since the US military forces are being overextended all over the globe. Unlike US troops in Japan and Germany following WWII when the US government succeeded in molding pro-US governments, the people of Afghanistan and Iraq detest the AmeriKKKan presence.

Boot called for an office of colonial affairs, "We need to create a colonial office – fast. Of course, it cannot be called that. It needs an anodyne euphemism such as Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. But it should take its inspiration, if not its name, from the old British Colonial Office and India Office. Together, these two institutions ran large swaths of the world with a handful of bright, honest, industrious civil servants. They had an enormous impact, given the small numbers involved; there were seldom more than 1,000 members of the Indian civil service to administer hundreds of millions of Indians. Like its British predecessors, the US colonial service needs to be an elite civilian agency that can call on forces for assistance where appropriate."

Boot fails to realize Bush and Co are a bunch of cold-blooded thieves who are used to doing their dastardly deeds in the dark, they have their hands full trying to deal with open resistance to their occupation by two very stubborn nations while also trying to secretly expropriate the rest of the world's resources. Boot also fails to recognize another lesson of history, Britain lost its American colonies because it overextended itself in wars around the world. The longer the resistance to AmeriKKKan occupation goes, the deeper Bush and Co will sink into the quagmire.

POSITIVELY BLACK -- 5 July 2003