The tentacles of Bad Policies

5/8/07 The tentacles of Bad Policies:

There is a tendency, I think, to view the mistake of invading Iraq merely in terms of numbers killed, the property damage, and the current costs. These are short term damages, important in and of themselves, but it may well be the long term damages which will prove the tougher mettle with which to deal.

Before the war the word sovereignty had a rather clear meaning. Not only did Bush invade a sovereign country who at the time was not attacking or providing material support for any other attacking entity, but after changing the reasons for attacking many times, Bush finally settled on bringing democracy to Iraq. Huh? It is now legitimate to attack a country because you do not like their form of government? Even if one were naive enough believe this, then wouldn't it have been a much less costlier venture to have attacked Saudi Arabia and deposed the King? I mean, the only ones left angry would have been relatives of the royal family. I think we could have held them at bay easier than the far more numerous Sunnis and Shiites.

Then, like on a roll, Bush added pre-emptive war as a legitimate venture. If I understand this new caveat correctly, if any nation is perceived as an eventual threat, common sense dictates that you go in and take them out based on your suspicions or assumptions. I mean, one can never be to cautious when it comes to national security. In Saddam's case we, for good reason, demanded he disarm and rid himself of the most dangerous weapons in his arsenal. Only contemplative, level-headed guys like George Bush should have access to powerful weaponry. After forcing Saddam to disarm, we then invaded. Interesting tactic. Certainly self serving in the short run. But wait, isn't this part of the reason other countries want to somehow arm themselves with weapons of mass destruction? Their reasoning might run along the logic that if they have weapons of mass destruction, Bush won't attack if he doesn't like their politics, but if they don't have weapons of mass destruction, he might. Thus, premptive war as a legitimate policy actually encourages other countries to some how acquire weapons of mass destruction. Given the rapid technological advances of our times and the easy availability of information of most any kind on the internet, it doesn't take an advanced degree to realize that it will not be long, if it is not already happening, before effective weapons of mass destruction will be able to be made outside of any massive bombable facility. One might even argue that suicide bombs are becoming effective weapons of mass destruction.

When any nation starts a war for the wrong self serving reasons or makes a profitable business out of arming the governments of poor countries providing such governments will rubber stamp our own foreign policy objectives, the long term result is permanent violence in these poor countries. It becomes a simple matter of whomever gets control over the supplied-by-us guns will be able to terrorize and control the rest of the population. Guns, using clever, if not moot logic, don't kill people. But most of the deaths in the violence across the globe are with American supplied weapons, the most lucrative industry we have.

The most damaging consequence of Bush's attack on Iraq is the legitimacy it has given to using violence to solve conflict. In short, we have lost the moral high ground, the world knows it, and it will not be easy to ever get it back again. There is precious little about this war that is not shameful. I am old, and maybe it doesn't matter, but I don't know what has happened to the American ideals with which I grew up. They seem pretty much gone with the wind now. Bush's whole attitude towards others is a mixture of thinly masked contempt, intolerance of differences, arrogance of power, and an eagerness to make others adopt his politics and religious beliefs either by imposing laws or killing them---their choice, they can run but not hide.

The effect of this war on our own national mentality and the mentality of our own soldiers is of no small matter. When most of the world opposes us, it is time to self investigate our behavior in this world. Isn't it a bit ludicrous to blame the conflict in Iraq on Iran and Syria, accusing them of fomenting all the killing by allowing Iranians and Syrians to enter Iraq and create trouble? Don't we far outnumber any other foreign forces and weren't we the first to invade the country? Is there any logic to the policy that we can invade other countries at will, but others cannot? The whole history here is crazy and irrational, a far cry from Bush's clarion declaration that it is all a battle between good and evil. Let me see if I recall this correctly: The U.S. attacks Iraq to stop Iraq's invasion of Kuwait (legitimate). When the war ends the U.S. decides to leave our military bases in Arabia. Al Queda is then formed to oppose American military bases in Arabia. Russia invades Afghanistan and sets up military bases in Afghanistan. Al Queda joins other groups to drive the Russians out. The U.S. supplies weapons to Al Queda and calls them 'freedom fighters' and 'liberators'. When Al Queda blew up Russians it was the good Al Queda. Now that they blow us up to get us out of Arabia it is the bad Al Queda. In Iraq Al Queda has killed, or supported the killing of, over 3,000 American soldiers. We in turn have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Where, I try to figure out, are the good guys with the white hats? Everyone over there seems to be wearing a blk hat and killing indiscriminately. Only Bush could create a situation where peacekeepers and terrorists become essentially the same operative mentalities: "Do it my way or else".

Bush says victory is absolutely essential? What the hell is victory at this point? If eliminating weapons of mass destruction was the goal, that was achieved prior to our evasion. Then it was ridding the country of a cruel tyrant. Hell, that was done in a couple of days. Then it was establishing democracy, although it is not clear who appointed us to determine what kind of government other sovereign countries have. But nevertheless the Iraqis voted, mission accomplished. Oops, spoke too soon, it then became a war to establish security in Iraq. Unfortunately, the longer this involvement of the US in Iraq goes on, the more the family and friends of those killed become enraged, the more highly determined are terrorists consequently created, the greater the opportunity for terrorists to get practical experience at their trade, and while guns don't kill people, the death toll rises amongst the various factions in Iraq---namely the Sunnis, The Shiites, the Americans, Al Queda and God knows how many other splinter factions who answer to no one. The reality is that Bush's arrogant deceptive ill-conceived invasion has provided a 5 year training ground for increasingly more and more 'terrorists' across the globe---sort of a hands on practical experience for them. Any anti terrorist actions which increase the number of terrorists across the globe is by definition insane. I won't even bother to mention the morality of it all. After all this digging ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole, Bush now says the answer is to 'surge' it all up. So far the biggest surge has been in the daily number of casualties. Still, Bush and his dwindling army of supporters, insist that victory can be had. What the hell is victory? For every American killed, 300 Iraqi have been killed. We have won the killing contest, let's just declare victory and go home. Is there any percentage of the population of Iraq killed, past which we will desist participating in the carnage? If we can't even rebuild New Orleans by what absurd stretch of the imagination can we claim we'll rebuild Iraq? Yesterday I read where Bush now thinks the answer is a War Czar. What does that mean, some kind of war enthused Hitlerite oblivious to the level of any carnage? Thousands of Americans died in Vietnam for no purpose whatsoever. We had no business invading Vietnam either, we lost that war and losing it was the best thing for us and the Vietnamese. It was the same scare tactic bullshit back then. If we didn't achieve victory in Vietnam the Vietnamese would kill each other, the rest of the world would collapse like dominoes, and eventually America's security itself would be endangered. We lost, as any nation deserves to lose when it wages an immoral war, and only by us losing did peace ever come to Vietnam and the death of our young men cease. When I was at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington I vowed never again would I ever support another such mindless sacrifice of young Americans.

The repercussions of our ever having gotten involved in this Iraq War are going to reverberate across our land for a long time, saddling the next few Presidents with trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Bush has fueled a mentality of violence as the answer to conflict past the point of any easy return. When violence becomes a means to an end endorsed at the highest levels of government, it gives validity to all sorts of groups angry about all sorts of things to use violence to achieve their objectives. If there is any doubt as to what a despicable War like this does to the mental state of our own troops the latest govt sponsored survey of our troops in Iraq puts the reality right in our face. In this survey, just published, 40% of our troops support the idea of torture, 10% personally reported abusing Iraqi civilians, and only 47 percent of the Army and 38 percent of Marines said noncombatatants should be treated with dignity and respect. It is ludicrous to blame our soldiers for the way they feel. A bad ill-advised war is the cause of their feelings. If we are going to fight wars for the wrong reasons and and at such a low level of value for human life, then we all begin to become full fledged terrorists in our own right, beginning with the troops on the front line.

War has now become surreal, an almost macabre exercise in absurdity. There is almost no way to compare the Iraq War with the old fashioned wars like WW1 and WW2. The only uniformed army is us. We aren't fighting an invading army, we are the invading army. Other than our soldiers on the front line there is no sacrifice, no hardships on the American public except the least affluent whose needs find less and less tax money available to address their needs. The rest of the public get graduated tax cuts with the graduation having a deeply downward slope, the rich getting the biggest cuts. And as Bush explains, why not? If 1% of Americans now own more of our wealth than the lowest 90% of Americans why shouldn't they get massive tax cuts? Let's be fair here, they have to pay more taxes. I would sure hate to be making their kind of money and have to pay so much tax. Not only is this war free---the costs left to the next generation, but no one has to fear being drafted. For almost all Americans the realities of this conflict are non existent---a war with no immediate consequences for hardly any Americans. Amazing. Of course there are consequences but precious few Americans are willing to take our blinders off or remove the braces from our brains. The delayed consequences will be draconian and punishing. As long as our War Industry, both abroad and the domestic War on Drugs absorb the vast amount of our government expenditures and sort of define us, there cannot possibly be any progress in the area of education, health care, reduction of environmental pollution, attention to overpopulation, or the depletion of the earth's natural resources. As long as the Bush mentality towards others remains our national policy, the accelerated growing gap between the haves and the have-nots across the globe will continue. As long as this accelerated growth continues, coupled with overpopulation, terrorism will multiply exponentially and the methods of terrorism become more punishing to larger and larger segments of societies across the globe, including at some point our own.

Mother Nature always bats last. In God's created scheme of things, an evolving complex process well beyond our best contemplative reaches, no species has ever been given a pass for any inabilities to adapt to changing conditions. "This too shall pass" is often used as some sort of comfort crutch, some sort of belief that things will go back to 'normal' and be like they used to, and as God wants it to be, which just happens to correspond with their own peculiar notions of how things ought to be. Three of the current Republican candidates for President don't even believe in evolution. Clearly, with their faith based mentality, they will never evolve in any direction on any issue. I guess according to them, time passes, and their perceived perceptions of reality are forever. Historical planetary reality dictates otherwise. TIME STAYS, WE GO.. It probably takes a life of living to ever come to grips with that reality.