|
Work in progress--I am still tightening this up with
supporting document links. October 16, 2003
On September 11th 2001, a fateful event took place that
put America on a new and apparently self-destructive
path. Almost universal sympathy was expressed to us,
but Bush's behavior made it clear that he wasn't
interested in sympathy. He wanted to go out and kick
some ass, so he threatened everyone in the world: Either
you join up with me to kick ass, or you're going to get
your ass kicked. In a matter of a few weeks, Bush
had turned things around so dramatically that all over the
world, the sympathy began to evaporate. One year
later, international polls were showing that Bush was more
frightening to people than Saddam Hussein.
Back home the fascist rhetoric was playing pretty well,
given that media deregulation was assuring that the masses
only heard what the Bush White House wanted them to
hear. We were told that this is a war against
terror. We were lied to in order to create support
for the poorly planned war. At every turn, the war
on terror has been distracted into the realm of
nation building in desolate, forsaken hell hole countries
whose crazy governments were once puppets of American
foreign policy. Billions are spent on building
pipelines that terrorist blow up. Billions are spent
on giving Iraqis free school and health care, not to
mention gasoline for ten cents a gallon that costs us
taxpayers full market price--profits going to Dick
Cheney's Halliburton. Billions of tax dollars are
apparently spent on bribing countries to support us at the
UN. (No real itemized expense accounts are kept, and
billions are already missing). They are starting to
admit that it's nation building and occupation. They
are not yet admitting how atrociously they are failing at
it.
I am not opposed to the concept of nation building, but the concept is wholly flawed when
considered in tandem with war--especially pre-emptive
war. I believe that it is possible to do this
without being arrogant or destructive. Bellicose neocolonial parasites are in
control of all the mass media sources, and they are loathe
to reveal their dirty secret of intentional failure and
political instability.
Since so much of my web site's content in the political
section is harshly critical, I am writing this page to
suggest some positive and constructive alternatives to the
current waste of tax dollars. In order to explain my
recommendations, I need to outline some basic principles
of reality, economics and politics that are pretty easy to
back up with some simple observations of history and
current events. Here is a list of the basic
principles that I believe the Bush administration either
does not know, or willfully subverts:
- violence is self-perpetuating, and this cycle is extremely
difficult to break.
- violence on the part of an oppressed group justifies the use of force and restriction of freedoms.
Create oppression and you will create violence in reaction.
Oppression enslaves the oppressor to a cycle of escalating
retaliation. The Israel/Palestine situation is an excellent
example.
- violence in isolated, unobserved areas will escalate, especially
if a source of wealth is present that can be converted into
weapons. Communism and religious extremism are expedient
justifications for designating such pariah states.
- wherever this occurs, the suppliers of hardware and technology
will make great profits. By covertly supporting both sides,
the carefully controlled and balanced instability creates the
ultimate self-justification, and source of profit. In the
Iran-Iraq war, the Reagan administration was overtly supporting Iraq
with supplies and intelligence, while at the same time they were
secretly selling weapons to Iran to fund a covert mercenary war in
Nicaragua. The result was the entrenchment of Saddam Hussein,
and the further alienation of Iran. Background
information: Washington
Post
- American foreign policy thrives on creating pariah states where no
media or human rights observers can go without extreme hazard.
Pariah states become training grounds for terrorists and
revolutionaries. Pariah states justify the use and funding of
the military.
- funding a military with public money takes away those funds for
social services for the poor. The more the poor are left
unsupported, the more necessary and expensive become the penal and
military expenditures. Tax dollars
should be spent on making life better, not on destroying
things. Only a very stupid and short-sighted person fails to
see that goodwill spending is a much better bargain than penal and
military spending when it comes to preventing bad behavior.
It's the difference between proactive thinking and reactive
thinking. The conservatives place far too much emphasis on the
notions that welfare enslaves people, and what we need is more law
and order. That argument creates a vicious cycle that
only enhances violence. Welfare can be reformed, but the
fact remains that even at its worst, a social safety net is less
costly than dealing with the results of not having one.
If my assumptions are true, then a war such as we saw in Iraq could
be prevented, and we could have put an end to Saddam's wretched
dictatorship by this simple formula:
Never blockade a country unless it is a universal blockade.
Instead, pump the country full of pop culture, affordable food and
create ways for people to make money. Don't use explosives to do
what fast food and Britney Spears' belly button can do better. I
hate to be so cynical, but it's a simple fact. Isolation creates
monsters, and saturation with our culture tends to minimize negative
reactions. I dread seeing McDonald's in Cuba and Saudi Arabia,
but idealist liberals have to admit that sharing of cultures erases
bullshit political boundaries created by selfish ruling elites.
Disgusting as Hollywood is, it's preferable to conquer an
abusive country with celluloid rather than explosives. Besides,
it generates wealth rather than destroys it.
Deploy lots of human rights observers with satellite uplinks, and a
crew of coercive UN weapons inspectors who had the authority of United
Nations backed cruise missiles targeted at each specific site that is
under inspection. If they don't get in, then the missiles
will. Jessica
Tuchman Matthews of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace proposed a path like this. Rather than letting the overly gentle liberals convince us
that violence never works, we must remember that sources of extreme
violence like we see in the history of Iraq, Colombia, Afghanistan must
never be supported in the first place, especially if the goal is to stop a supposedly threatening
ideology. Once a monstrous power such as Al Qaida or Hussein is
established (both were supported by semi-covert American
government funding and training), then it is necessary to
fix the errors of the idiotic representatives of our
government. With modern technology and global participation there
are ways to put an end to the abuses of dictators without harming
civilians. But, humans are addicted to war. Monsters like
Saddam must be eliminated by fairly extreme measures (though not war),
and they must never be supported for any reason. Americans must
fight to keep our leadership from letting corporate interests (fear of
communism, unions and fanatical religion) from determining international
policy. Their decisions are almost always venal. The facts
and events strongly suggest that Bush did not want weapons inspectors to
do their job (until after the war, that is). They wanted war. This kind of thinking will
always backfire.
The financial dealings with Iraq would have to be transformed--no
longer would it be acceptable for companies like Halliburton to take Iraqi money,
or pay money that they know will be used for the
creation of weapons at the expense of the Iraqi people. No longer
would it be acceptable for American and European banks to lend crazy
dictators money so they can abuse their people. Background
information: BBC,
CATO
institute speech by Cheney
We cannot be hypocritical and duplicitous. Until the invasion of
Kuwait, Iraq was considered an important American ally against Wahabi
and Shi'ite extremism. Reagan, Bush Sr. and Rumsfeld are all on
record praising the virtues of Saddam's model rule in the Middle
East. All of this happened several years after Saddam used
chemical weapons on Wahabi Kurds in the North. In Afghanistan the
Taliban's behavior was long an outrage to all educated liberal Americans.
Yet, oil companies were secretly planning a pipeline across Afghanistan
for Caspian oil. They were in negotiations with the Taliban until
July of 2001. This deal fell through, at which point the US
government turned up the heat on Afghanistan. It is rumored that
threats were exchanged, and it is a fact that Enron was involved in this
deal. Enron's demise occurred shortly after the
Afghanistan deal collapsed. It can be assumed that Halliburton was involved on the
construction end--they specialize in oil pipelines and refineries.
In the period between then and September 11th, John Ashcroft announced
he would no longer fly on commercial airlines, and then four airplanes
were hijacked. It is this kind of hypocrisy and willful
stupidity that got us where we are today, and makes it impossible to use
the current methods to remedy the mistakes made in the
past.
|
