PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

the social function of riot and mayhem
by John Lacny Sunday, Apr. 13, 2003 at 1:56 PM

The rampant looting in recently-occupied Iraq is not unwelcome from the Bush regime's perspective. In fact, it's all part of the game plan.

It would be a grave mistake for people to make the critique that the imperialists went into Iraq "without a plan." In light of the ongoing chaos in Baghdad especially, but also throughout the country, the liberals will make this critique, which despite (or in fact, because of) the fact that it is incorrect, serves a socially useful function for the hard-right core of the imperialist war planners.

All along, they have no doubt been planning to reconstitute as many elements of the Ba'athist regime as possible to serve as local gendarmes for the occupation. The autonomous armed forces of the Kurdish but also especially the Shi'ite parties are unreliable, and the US has always wanted "Saddam's regime without Saddam," so that is what they will strive for. The rampant pillage of anything that is not nailed down (and many things that ARE nailed down) by the impoverished Shi'ite population especially is a desperate attempt at self-preservation by many people, but essentially serves the same function as anti-Semitic pogroms once served: the king used to divert the violence of popular fury against the Jews, as a safety valve to maintain his own dominance. But rarely did he REALLY lose control of the situation.

So for example, even before the attack on Iraq began, there was widespread concern for the safety of the irreplaceable archaeological treasures in Baghdad's National Museum, and it strains credulity to think that the US occupation forces could not have predicted the appalling turn of events that occurred at the end of last week. They INTENDED for something like this to happen. By creating the widespread reality and impression of mass chaos, and then declaiming responsibility for it ("Our soldiers aren't trained as policemen, after all!"), they can pave the way for the open redeployment of the Ba'athist police forces. A week ago, the Ba'athist security forces were the subjects of harrowing atrocity stories in the US press, so there needs to be some justification offered to the US public for welcoming them as they reappear, often even wearing the same uniforms they always used to wear. Most Iraqis, too -- though with a good deal less guillibility than the heavily-indoctrinated US population -- will sigh with relief at the reimposition of the very people from whom they were "liberated" last week, preferring them (at least for now) to the Hobbesian violence that now reigns.

In the long term, the stripping of the paltry remainder of Iraq's national assets will mean that the already disastrous economy of the country will collapse even further, and the country will become even more dependent on oil as its only bargaining chip for financing "reconstruction." This will insure that any puppets that the Anglo-American axis chooses to install -- whether it's ultimately the banker-thief Chalabi or someone else -- do not get too big for their britches, and instead have to grovel with thanks for whatever pitiful remuneration the US and its UK satrapy offer them for their oil concessions.

Masterful, really.