This Week in Imperialism

This.

I've seen several comments about this "non-binding" US Senate resolution to partition Iraq into semi-autonomous regions based on sectarian lines (Sunni, Shiite, Kurd), and the thing that keeps getting me is, where are the Iraqis? As far as I can tell, it seems like this plan was drawn up entirely in washington, without any consultation with the people that it would actually effect. Historically, this makes perfect sense. The current borders of Iraq were drawn up by the British back when they were running things in the early 20th C. And given the US's current imperial agenda in the middle east, it's really about time they started drawing new lines on the map. But how is there no comment on this at all? Once again, a foreign, Western nation has decided that it is its burden--no, responsibility--to tell a poor, third-world nation how its government should be run and how the country should be structured, without even consulting them. Especially the sectioning along cultural lines, it seems based on such a mean-spirited assumption about the Iraqi people, that they're simply incapable of overcoming cultural differences, and must be kept fenced off from each each other likes dogs. The assumption that the "oriental" is fundamentally irrational and unchangeable, and that we, the enlightened people of the West, in fact understand their culture better than they do, is like prime rule number one of Orientalism. I wonder if the people writing this resolution have ever even heard of the concept, let alone read the book.

(But but, you say, there's a reference to some sort of partitioning in the Iraqi constitution! And the Iraqi constitution is a clear and unambiguous statement of the will of the Iraqi people, created without any outside influence whatsoever! Really! The American's were also totally surprised to find out Iraq had oil after they attacked! They were so surprised!)

Even the phrasing of that article, all the quotes from the various politicians, are all in reference to how this well help the US. So the message is, "Here, run your country like this, because it will make our (already quite easy) life here in America that much easier." And we are surprised that so many in the third world consider the US to be arrogant and hubristic?

Doesn't this blow anyone else's mind???