B-52s over Baghdad

But no U.S. flag over captured Iraqi port

"A U.S. official has confirmed that a major air war has begun," — ITV news anchor, informing the network's Baghdad correspondent, Ian Glover-James, who was surprised to hear that because all was calm as far as he could see.

"The Pentagon confirms that 'shock and awe' has begun. — CNN

Blogspot's unofficial Baghdad correspondent, Raed, checked in with another brief dispatch this morning, just after the U.S. Air Force B-52s took off from British airfields on their way to bomb Iraq. Raed's bloggings have a growing readership, thanks to recommendations not only from The Dagley Dagley Daily, but from Newsday, ZDNet, The San Francisco Chronicle, and the Online Journalism Review, and MSNBC, among others. There's even one called The Blogs of War. Here in New Jersey, NJ.com's Jeff Jarvis is blogging the war.

Yes, they've taken down the flag raised by invading U.S. Marines over the captured port of Umm Qasr. The British Sky News report says "no reason was given for the decision, but Washington has consistently stressed that invading forces want to liberate Iraq, not occupy it."

The destruction we're watching, and hearing, will eventually lead to rebuilding, which is big business, especially for the handful of American companies, including Halliburton (which Vice President Dick Cheney headed before he went back into government work), that have already received contracts (flag or no flag) from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Here are a few of many headlines about that from:

The Charlotte Observer: War to Profit U.S. Firms

The Dallas Business Journal: Texas oil industry set to profit from Iraq war

The Boston Globe: U.S. is accused of hoarding contracts to rebuild

The Guardian, UK: U.S. firms get $1.5 billln deal to rebuild Iraq

An excerpt from the Guardian article: "A subsidiary of Halliburton, the firm formerly headed by the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, is a member of one of four consortia whose bids were invited in a secret process last month. Several of the firms are major Republican party donors."

The BBC: The business of rebuilding war zones

("I just want to make sure our viewers know what's going on," Wolf Blitzer just said. Similarly, I just want to make sure my readers know what's going on, so we now return you to the list of articles about the business of rebuilding.)

The Scotsman: US offers to rebuild post-war Iraq greeted with scorn by rebels

McClatchy News Service: Senators feel out of the loop of postwar plans

Dow Jones: Bush Has Audacious Plan to Rebuild Iraq Within Year

Washington Post: U.S. Set to Award 7 Contracts for Rebuilding of Iraq, Initial Work Will Go to American Firms

The Tallahassee Democrat: Corporate America divvies up the post-Saddam spoils

Forbes: Senators bash Pentagon for postwar Iraq secrecy

The Globe and Mail, Toronto, Canada: U.S. firms to lead rebuilding effort

The New York Times/International Herald Tribune: As U.S. firms poise to reap Iraq spoils, British rivals worry, U.S. business to reap most of the profit in rebuilding

SmartMoney.com: Oil-Services Firms May Hit Jackpot in Post-War Iraq

The Denver Post: GOP-linked firms already lining up to rebuild Iraq

The Palm Beach Post: Might might make right. Right?

Molly Ivins, Creators Syndicate, in The Salt Lake Tribune: Bush Would Have Well-Connected American Firms Overhaul Iraqi Society

The Age, Australia: Corporate US to rebuild Iraq

The Independent, UK: First deals to rebuild Iraq will go only to US firms

The Nation: Military Globalism

Guess we've got no reason to worry, then, about what effect the attack on Iraq, and the terrorism and further wars that are almost sure to follow, will have on our economy. Maybe we oughta update that 20th-century cliche, "What's good for General Motors is good for the country," as there are some who obviously believe that what's good for Halliburton is good for the world. 

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non- Westerners never do."

Samuel P. Huntington, author of The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order