I thought this article was insightful. It seems to me that America needs to understand these concepts soon, or many millions will suffer and die needlessly. As was anticipated by a minority of us, the US has nothing to gain, and an immeasurable amount to lose for herself and others, with the occupation of the emerging states of former Iraq.
Kinda stuck between a rock and a hardplace right now. On the one hand if we left tomorrow we would soon have either another dictatorship or a bunch of feudal warlords in Iraq and we would need to invade again in a decade. If we stay it will cost a thousand fortunes and another few hundred men. I figure we should stay because if we can fix Iraq now we won't have to pay again and again and again. Its better to pay of a credit card debt when you can than let it fester. And you know we could probally get stuff fixed faster if people would stop blowing stuff up so we could bring in some civilian help.
Very wise Clockwood, except for the niggling matter of ignoring the fact that more and more Iraqis and Arabs in general are hating America every day. If you consider this a negligible price of exercising global eminence, try this: Go through your day, and your week, making each person you meet hate you. After a while, you will undoubtably notice a pattern emerging. Being arrogant and overconfident is very simply not profitable at any scale of personal or international relations. The longer Americans allow their government to behave in the way it is now in the Middle East, in South Asia, in Africa, and in Europe, the more damage will be done to the prosperity of their country for this and the next generation. This is clear to me, and to a growing number of people, because the reasoning and the evidence bearing it out are clearer each day. There are millions of people in the world today who would paraphrase Clint Eastwood: "Go ahead, Yank- Fuck up my day." Then watch America's financial, social, and hegemonic trend line and see what happens.
One of hte reasons to not want a USA invasion of Iraq like they did was that it would lead to a large period of anarchy and increased problems in the middle east etc. Or in other words the peopel blowing things up was quite likely from the beggining, and the rock and hard place dilemma was the same. So why walk stright into it?
and continue arming the Kurds ( collecting the arms of the nonkurd iraqis at the same time) , and they become more aggresive and kill more nonkurds in Kerkuk. thats the american way of solving problems. everything is getting uglier- how can it be?
Brilliant article. I really enjoyed it. I like the idea of having all the people around the world that want peace to simply stop working, to nonviolently protest aggressively, but not only would it need some kind of organization, I'm just not sure enough people would buy into it. We'd have to prepare, we'd have to get together enough supplies to weather the storm, because our incomes would be eliminated entirely. But even if there are as many as thirty million people around the world taking this seriously, they'd still be outnumbered by the rest of the people 200:1. I'm afraid that it just wouldn't help anyone anywhere.
I think the answer is to not leap too far in encouraging people to open their eyes. In order to give peace a chance, the cliches must not obscure the most primal, banal and primitive motivations we all share. If someone cannot grasp the benefits of understanding and empathy, because the world is confusingly complicated, then nameless leaders must quietly prepare bridges without credit. One carefully executed selfless act each day can create and exponential reproduction that expands into even the innermost circle of Project for a New American Century. People are surprised by selflessness even more than by terrorism. This nontactical tactic can leapfrog many degrees of separation. I believe in this. Otherwise I would kill myself now. Now fire away, if you have the intellectual capacity, every egotistical American Supremacist cynic in cyberland. The rest of you, would you please help me develop the idea of political reciprocity in the thread of that title.
A lot of people blame the US for problems in the Middle East and Arab countries. That is fine if they do not like US policies. What annoys is that they blame the US for just about everything, even their own cultural problems. Is Afghanistan's current problems a result of America's doing? No. The problem is that the people do not want to be unified, everyone wants to be in charge and have their own way and the result is chaos. The same with Iraq. It was the same with the former Yugoslavia. In order to maintain order, they have required an iron hand to prevent anarchy and fuedalism. The Saudis do it, Jordan, Syria, Libya, Iran, etc. It seems to me that a lot of the Muslim/Arab world like to blame the US and Israel for the problems. How does Israel's existence a problem for them, other than the fact they hate Israel? The US buys huge amounts of oil from many of these countries, it helps provide money and jobs. To me it is all seeking a scapegoat for internal problems. The Iraqi people now could solve their own problems if they would try and work it out instead of fighting as to whether Shia'a, Sunni, Kurds, Sadamites, etc. are right or wrong. They are their own worst enemy.
There's some truth in that. Thanks for sharing some of yourself. There is blame blame, blame everywhere now, but hardly any national expressions of guilt. Just as in any era when a powerful country coils up and unleashes widespread suffering and death, the public is being urged to suppress all sentiments of national guilt, and focus only on national pride. Fear is used to suppress restiveness everywhere, always delaying and obscuring the inevitable until there is revolution. Then when a culture of fear regenerates, the cycle begins again. Mid-cycle, some call their scapegoats terrorists, or communists, or barbarians, some call their scapegoats colonialists, or hegemons, or zionists. The reality is that there are increasingly fewer purely "internal" problems in an integrating world, and that "they", and we, are ever and always our own worst enemies. We circle inanely repeating our illusory obsessions about the supremacy of self, tribe, nation. We cultivate fear and superstition, exhibiting collective behaviors far more primitive than our average individual intellects can justify. And we turn away from dealing with the insanity perpetuated by leaders we support, claiming collective powerlessness. Presently in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are witnessing both the acceleration of history and a repetition of the failures of every past empire. Iraqis and Afghans are farther from solving their own problems, and closer to civil war, because of the American occupations. America is farther from solving her own problems, because reviewing in fast-forward the well-demonstrated unviability of colonialism is confusing to leaders and voters who don't know history. We are our own worst enemies, for as long as majorities allow ignorance to govern. Blame and guilt all around. Suffering all around. And the answer blowing in the wind: Everyone get your own house in order, because the battle outside will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls, for the times... Well, you know.
Each case is different. But if I remember correctly, it was the US who supplied military training and weapons to the Taliban and to Saddam in the eighties. Which does not eliminate the fact that the Taliban were a bunch of religious fanatics and Saddam a hateful dictator.
Dont think of America as an individual. Its a bunch of people and ideas constantly being made, erased, and shuffled. Many of those politicians in power then aren't in power now.
I know. But the hatred is still there after 20 years. It's stupid to direct hatred towards a whole nation, but terrorists, fundamentalists and dictators are not very rational people. People in the U.S. are still very apologetic about slavery, which was abolished more than a century ago. Shouldn't the current politicians be a bit apologetic about what their predecessors did regarding foreign policy, insted of pretending that nothing happened?
Clockwood: "Its a bunch of people and ideas constantly being made, erased, and shuffled." I think it's a bunch of people who will be held accountable, whether they expect this or not. Better if they faced reality and pulled thier own weight, looked around with open eyes and minds, and treated others as equals, and spared the world a violent lesson in repetitive misery.
