[Peace] From the Tehran Times 2008

[karen aram]

The below is why many, like myself view issues related to foreign policy through a geo-political strategic lens, known as the “Great Game."
Iraq smoke screen  

Opinion <https://www.tehrantimes.com/service/others/opinion>
November 20, 2008 - 0:0
All eyes are on Iraq, and that should tell you that’s where they want you to look.

In military parlance, it’s called a diversion. 
It could also be called a smoke screen. 
Of course, the Iraq war is an important issue and warrants extensive analysis and media coverage, but it’s not the only issue in the world. 
And just what is the Iraq smoke screen supposed to be covering up? 
Many say the Iraq war is meant to divert attention from the fact that the powers that be have designs on Central Asia. 
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has said that he plans to withdraw forces from Iraq and transfer troops to Afghanistan, which would be a major shift of focus to Central Asia. 
And former U.S. national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski is one of Obama’s foreign policy advisors. 
According to Brzezinski’s theory, control of the Eurasian landmass is the key to global domination and control of Central Asia is the key to control of the Eurasian landmass. 
It seems that Russia and China have been paying attention to Brzezinski’s theory, since they formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in 2001, ostensibly to curb extremism in the region and enhance border security, but most probably with the real objective of counterbalancing the activities of the United States and NATO in Central Asia. 
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are the other full members of the SCO, and the organization granted observer status to Mongolia in 2004 and to Iran, Pakistan, and India in 2005. 
Iran has expressed interest in becoming a full member, and its accession to the SCO would change the geopolitical equations in Central Asia. 
Central Asia is a key region of the globe, since it sits atop vast reserves of oil and gas and is at the crossroads of Asia and Europe. 
It will also be the main link in two major transport routes that are taking shape, the North-South Corridor between South Asia and Russia, and the New Silk Road, which is meant to be a recreation of the old trade route which ran from China to West Asia. 
Clearly, a number of global players are competing for influence in Central Asia in the New Great Game. 
South America is another area of concern for the global ruling class, especially since an Indigenous reawakening and a wave of anti-globalization sentiment have swept across the continent, leading to electoral victories in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador for presidents with a social justice agenda and a decidedly anti-imperialist bent. 
Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, Bolivian President Evo Morales, and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa are all opposed to neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus. 
The winds of change are blowing across the continent, and there is a sense of hope in South America that has not been seen in 500 years. 
And over the past few years, South America has become the center of the anti-globalization movement. 
This development has upset the plans of the moguls of globalization, who have undoubtedly devised intrigues to reverse the trend. 
In South Asia, the people of Kashmir have risen up in a people power movement challenging Indian rule. However, the globalists will certainly try to undermine the Kashmir liberation movement and delay its inevitable victory as long as possible since they have used the conflict as a source of instability that has prevented India and Pakistan from realizing their full potential for over six decades, which has allowed the neocolonialists to exercise a degree of control over South Asia. 
Meanwhile, there is no end in sight to the horrific war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has left over five million people dead. 
Congo is a mineral-rich country that is the key to the development of Central Africa and all of sub-Saharan Africa. As long as Congo is down, Africa cannot rise up. 
And the extensive focus on the Iraq war could also be meant to divert attention from the impending collapse of the dollar, which will probably lead to an economic meltdown of unprecedented proportions and a great depression in the U.S. and possibly even the adoption of a new common currency, the amero, in the three countries of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the United States, Canada, and Mexico. 
Perhaps the Iraq war is also meant to divert attention from world hunger, which should be a major issue for all people of conscience. 
Today, 18,000 children died of hunger and hunger-related causes. And tomorrow 18,000 children will die, and the next day 18,000 children will die. And the next day and the next day will be the same if nothing is done. 
But somehow, media outlets do not cover this issue extensively, and proposals to end world hunger are not being seriously discussed in the corridors of power. Some say just the opposite is true, claiming there are efforts underway to increase hunger as part of a global depopulation program. 
And, incredible as it might seem, the Iraq war is even a diversion from the Iraq war itself. 
The superficial facts about the Iraq war -– how many U.S. soldiers and insurgents have been killed on a given day, another bombing, another kidnapping, etc., etc., etc. -– are actually meant to divert attention from the real issues and objectives of the Iraq war, such as the fact that it is a war on the past, present, and future since the occupiers have targeted the country’s cultural heritage and national cohesion and even the Iraqi people’s gene pool. 
In reality, the Iraq war is a genocidal war in which the U.S. military has used a mutagenic weapon, depleted uranium, which has given Iraqis genetic damage, caused a significant rise in birth defects, and irreversibly irradiated large swathes of Iraq; the occupiers are fanning the flames of sectarian and ethnic strife to pit the Sunnis against the Shias and the Arabs against the Kurds in order to destabilize the country and the region through managed chaos; and a program of cultural destruction is underway in which much of the world’s cultural heritage has been lost, as evidenced in the looting of the National Museum of Iraq after the fall of Baghdad in 2003 and the ongoing damage being inflicted on important archaeological sites like Ur, Uruk, Babylon, Nineveh, and Nippur. 
The world is going through dramatic changes and will probably be unrecognizable in a few years, so don’t let the Iraq smoke screen cloud your vision. 
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