Iraq's $150 Billion Debt: A Small Price for 'Freedom'?
Iraq's central bank is sounding the alarm over a stunning $150 billion debt, a figure that appears inexplicable until you recall the roughly $3 trillion 1 price tag of the U.S.-led 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' and the subsequent decade-plus of occupation. The New Arab article, like much mainstream coverage, focuses on current fiscal mismanagement, sidestepping the historical elephant in the room: how
a nation with the world's fifth-largest proven oil reserves ended up drowning in foreign debt. We're meant to believe this crushing debt is a recent phenomenon, an organic economic challenge, rather than a direct, predictable consequence of an illegal invasion that decimated infrastructure, disbanded its army, and led to a protracted, often corrupt, reconstruction effort. (Perhaps the 'shock and
awe' was primarily for Iraq's national balance sheet?) One might wonder, how exactly does liberating a country lead to its central bank sounding alarms, unless, of course, the 'liberation' was less about freedom and more about financial subjugation dressed in democratic rhetoric. This isn't just debt; it's the tab for a war crime paid by the very people whose lives were shattered.