Criminal Insecurity

 

Americans, especially "moderate Democrats," decided to reject Dr Dean when he said that America was less safe, just after the capture of Saddam Hussein. That rejection has turned out to be another case of killing the messenger. Dr Dean got it right.

Now it is obvious to everyone that the war in Iraq is getting wider and deeper, that the guerillas have a worldwide reach, and that no one is safe. Al Qaeda is presumed to be the organization responsible for all the attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan, Spain, England, Egypt, Indonesia and elsewhere. Iraq has turned into a recruiting device for suicidal terrorists (we used to call them fanatics). Somehow, somewhere in Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East, the fanatics are being trained and equipped in increasing numbers. They are adequately funded and supplied with the tools of their trade.

Lurking in the background are the Saudi Wahhabbis, funded by the Saudi government out of billions and billions paid for Arabian oil by Americans. No one knows exactly how the money flows to the fanatics, or how much, but there is a suspicion that the Wahhabbis have something to do with it. But what goes on in Saudi Arabia remains inscrutable. In that respect, Middle Eastern Arabian regimes are most like Kim Jong Il's North Korea.

It should be obvious that U.S. policy vis a vis Iraq, the Middle East, Arabs and North Korea isn't working. Even U.S. policy toward China is flawed, causing increasing distrust and hostility, not assuaging it, which may undermine Taiwan's neutrality or independence. The key element of U.S. foreign policy is the Bandit Doctrine: the claimed Right of Unilateral, Pre-emptive Military Action. The core of that policy is the idea that the United States has the self-granted permission to send its military wherever it wants, whenever it desires, and for whatever purpose it determines (from time to time). Other nations and, particularly, the United Nations are irrelevant to the current U.S. decision-making process, although this Administration will suffer to hear sycophantic opinions delivered through private, back channels. The Bandit's policy is an extreme exercise in American Exceptionalism, or a reversion to the Divine Right of Imperial Presidents, or both. Whatever it is, it is not winning the United States friends and allies, and it is not winning the war in Iraq or anywhere else.

The Bandit has got the world - not just the United States - into a war with a fanatical underground, a super-Mafia, powered by young men and women willing to throw away their lives for the Cause. That Cause is defined by the Islamic Imams and their Fatwahs, but it could be any Cause directed by anyone. For that matter, I feel Bandit government is exactly the same sort of thing as Al Qaeda. Both the Jihadists and the U.S. government claim the superior legitimacy of their purposes, and further claim they are doing the work of their gods (Allah, God, Jehovah, etc). Internally, the Bandit is waging a similar war on behalf of his Cause against Americans who don't live his way and certainly don't see things his way. If the Bandit only slaps Americans with a velvet glove, it's because he hasn't unsheathed the iron hand - yet. (All this will be revealed later this year, when and if the Bandit Court gets down to business.)

Thus, the very first step in ending the living hell perpetrated upon the rest of us must be getting rid of those who fight for Causes, the "fundamentalist" fanatics. For Americans, that means unloading the perverse and criminal Bandit government. Unfortunately, it cannot be done all at once. We do have the chance next year to rid ourselves of the warlike fundamentalists in Congress, and return some sanity to the Capitol.

There's another "unfortunately." Now that the Bandit opened Pandora's Box in Iraq, all of the woes that were locked up have fled to other parts of the world. Those woes are afflicting people without mercy, regardless of guilt or innocence. So, we cannot just stop everything and go away. We have to put evil monsters back in the box. But how?

This is definitely not an argument for continuing the war in Iraq. It is an argument for doing what is important and morally right. First of all, it would be of the greatest importance if Osama Bin Laden were captured and brought before a World Court for his crimes. As it turns out, this is a lot more important than Saddam Hussein's trial. It's what the U.S. government should have focused on from the start, not an invasion of Iraq. Better late than never: we should be redirecting our efforts into capturing the heads of Al Qaeda.

The United States should end illegal embarrassments like Guantanamo Bay, and many other things that enrage Third World denizens against the First World. Americans should start on a crash policy of reducing their gluttony, especially in the use of oil. The United States needs rapprochement with the rest of the world, which means an end to Cowboy Foreign Policy (locally, impolitely known as BB, "Bandit Bullshit").

But none of that gets rid of the ferocious monsters the Bandit created in Iraq, who are destroying hundreds or thousands of lives every day. There is a solution: somehow - I don't know how, exactly - we need to create an intervention of the Islamic, Arab States to replace the U.S. military in Iraq. The Bandit and his cronies, VP Cheney foremost among that disreputable gang, have created a situation in which the best possible result in Iraq is worse than what went before. The only way we can undercut the propaganda of Iraqi insurgents, and remove the perception of occupation most (about 80%) Iraqis have, is by withdrawing the American military. As in Vietnam, that is something we will be forced to do, sooner or later.

We might succeed in getting the Northern Kurds and Southern Shì'ites to agree on one Iraq, but they are physically split and separated by hostile Sunnis. The key problem is getting the hostile Sunnis to simmer down. That's not an easy task, since they are the big losers in all that has transpired. The Sunnis occupy the Capitol City, Baghdad, because they've always lived there, as well as the main points of control over Iraq's roads and rivers. That centrality of location is going to make it nearly impossible to maintain a stable Iraqi government without Sunni consent and major participation. We could try to put the genie back in the bottle - bring back Sunni rule! - the status quo ante - but now that would almost certainly start a long, vicious civil war. The Kurds and Shì'ites are not going to accept any Sunni rule, not after Saddam. What the Sunni insurgents might accept is supervision by friendly Arabs. This is assumes the Kurds and Shì'ites are able to control and govern their own territories, which is already largely the case. Of course, where this sort of solution leads is to a tri-partite division of Iraq, which is the only thing I thought would work in the first place.

One of the peculiarities of the war in Iraq is the seeming alliance between Al Qaeda and Sunni insurgents. There is a large difference in their alleged cultural and political outlooks, so this must be an arrangement of convenience. Al Qaeda is more radically reactionary than either the Basra or Teheran Shì'ites; after all, they are the Taliban. What they have in common with followers of Saddam (Stalin, Hitler ...), is a belief in autocratic government by a Great Leader. The specific persecutions invoked by the Great Leader don't matter; cruelty and injustice have always been the common language of barbaric criminals. One of the few things the Press has done right about the Iraq war is show the insurgents for what they are. But, that hasn't impressed itself on the Arab mind, which seems prepared to accept the most horrible tragedies as routine events. I have always thought there is a streak of cruelty in Arab Islamic culture. Maybe that's why Al Qaeda is devoted to a restoration of the Caliphate; no rational modern person could be.

On today's Talking Head shows, there was a call for a strategy that makes some sense. The proposal is to encourage Islamic Imams to invoke Fatwahs against terrorism. It was said that, until that happens, the Terror War will go on and on. That reasoning is probably correct, but immediately points out an unlikely future. Lots of Imams have already denounced what's been happening, but no one listens to them any more than people listen to me about the Conquest of Iraq and the Bandit. It's a toothless strategy.

Nonetheless, the proposal shows the key to the fanatical barbarism in Iraq and elsewhere is "hearts and minds." What's happening goes on because millions of Arabs support it. They feel First Worlders deserve what they got in New York, Madrid and London. Some Arabs were so pleased about it that they danced in the streets. In their hatred, Arabs repeat the feelings of most Vietnamese 40 years ago about the United States. The Viet Cong ultimately won, even if they were wiped out in the 1968 Tet Offensive. (So claim right-wing U.S. military experts; but note the difference between winning a battle and the war.) The VC followed Mao's maxim about disappearing into the countryside, just as today's fanatical Iraqis fade into the streets of Baghdad and Faluja. The Reign of Terror will go on and on, now expanded to everywhere, not just Afghanistan and Iraq, as long as people's feelings about the United States remain hostile.

So, in the end, it comes down to being a friend. If Americans were the friends of Arabs and other peoples, if they felt our friendship in their hearts, because we felt it in ours, the terror would stop. Once upon a time, people everywhere believed in Lady Liberty's message; she beckoned to all of us. Would that were so now.