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Business as usual?

FOR the US, business first in Iraq. It has never been a secret that big conglomerates and high-pitched business interests were hand-in-glove with the Bush Administration to wage the epoch-making Iraq War. But, there’s a more chilling footnote to it.

Our worst fears were confirmed when news broke this week that private security contractors being engaged by, and sent from, the US are on a shooting spree in Baghdad and elsewhere in the war-torn country. The name of the game is “providing protection to the US diplomatic corps”. Can there be anything more heinous than this, in a war, and carried out at the behest of the world’s most civilised country?

Without doubt, from the very start of this war, and even in the days leading up to the war, perceptions are that President Bush has been hoodwinking the American public and the world at large both about the situations necessitating the war, the ultimate aims behind the military expedition, and the ground situations emerging in the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein from power. For the Iraqis, the past four years have been a period of untold suffering. One can only leave it to imagination as to what’s really going wrong in Iraq, as there have been extensive curbs on the media, and information other than what’s dished out by the western channels, are hard to come by. Occasional exposes, like the Abu Ghraib, have only benumbed our senses. And, the latest among them, of private security guards being unleashed on hapless civilian population, and indulging in a wanton shooting spree, adds to the overall pathos there.

Clearly, this administration does not go by the rules of the game. It’s because, there apparently is no external power to call their bluff, question them or stop them. But, appreciably, the most powerful repellent comes from within, which includes, among others, the alert US media. Bush’s days are numbered, anyway. But, the question is, should such political entities get away with all their misdeeds and the cowboy clout?