Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.-- Pericles (430 BC)
Thoughts After the War
First of all, I have to say "mea culpa." I was completely sucked in by the propaganda put out after September 11th. I sincerely believed that the American government really was, for once, going to fight a just war against a malevolent enemy.
I have, unfortunately, witnessed the United States government almost immediately go back to the concept of realpolitik which served it so well in most of its wars in the past. What's more I realized that because September 11th was essentially the result of a falling out among thieves (American politicians and their thuggish Saudi buddies) I was looking at September 11th, it's causes and it's results incorrectly.
The problem is that the current government of Saudi Arabia may be likened to a cappo in the Mafia. In exchange for giving a piece of the action to those higher up in the Mob (politically connected businessmen and politicians in the United States), the Saudi leaders get to live lives of unparalelled luxury.
However, some of these cappo's started to think, "We aren't getting enough. All this valuable oil is in our territory and we have to give so much of our profits up to others. If we can start a war with the United States, at first we will suffer horribly, but eventually we will have total independance, and we can run our part of the organization the way we want to."
Well, the United States government did what any Mob Kingpin would do, they devestated the rebellious parts of the organization. After this was done, they decided to pretend that nothing had happened and that everything was hunky-dory and we can all go back to being such great allies again.
Of course, many innocent people died in Al Quaida's little spat with their masters in the United States. Oh, and the United States came out of the conflict in a weakened position, because now the Saudi organization knows how far the United States will go to punish them if they ever try to start another war. So, the Saudi Arabian paymasters (themselves creatures of certain United States politicians and bureacrats) of Al Quaida get off with a warning, this time, and our government tries to distract us by rattling their sabres for wars with countries that had nothing to do with September 11th (like Baathist Iraq, baathism is described as "a relentlessly secular ideology" in this Washington Post article). Saddam Hussein's Baathist Iraq is, in fact, an ideologically hostile rival to the fundamentalist Islamic movements, and as such would not be interested in helping Osama bin Laden gain personal glory through a successful attack on the United States. This is why the United States supported Iraq in it's wars up until the Gulf War and turned a blind eye to Saddam Hussein's atrocities against those living within his borders. As always happens, as happened with Al Quaida, the U. S. government builds these monsters due to the dictates of realpolitik and then when that realpolitik seems to be failing, as when Hussein began to realize the Baathist dream of a pan-Arabic state with his invasion of Kuwait or when the Twin Towers fell and then refuses to hold the despicable doctrine of realpolitick (which itself is simply a way of proping up a mercantilist empire). Instead, it simply tries to convince us that we were not ruthless and amoral enough the last time.
I am an isolationist. As such, I don't believe that the government of the United States should be out trying to stop other governments from committing crimes. (I believe that as individuals we have the right and the duty to intervene to protect people from evil and oppressive governments, through whatever means we have at our disposal.) The reason that I take this political position is because the U.S. government cannot be described as a gathering of saints, and therefore it will be impossible to see through propaganda to see which interference is just and which is not. Whenever I falter in my isolationist positions, the prevalence in our government of doctrines such as realpolitick and mercantilism bring me down to earth. Realpolitik is simply, "the ends justify the means," and has been used by tyrants from Hitler to Stalin to justify their atrocities. Mercantilism, in this context, is the use of war and diplomacy to achieve economic gains for a priveledged few in the United States and with no moral underpinning than the almighty dollar.
Of course, isolationism is an unpopular position (even if you call it pacifism and even reject taking up arms in legitimate self-defense), because the opinion makers, power brokers and politicians do not gain anything from isolationism. I expect that many people reading this have never really thought about this view, isolationism. Well, I encourage you to think about it, and what it really means before you condemn it. Criticism of isolationism quieted early dissent against the Vietnam War, a war that produced no positive gains for the average United States citizens and horrific losses for both the U.S. and the population of Viet Nam. Think about this, what have you really gained as a result of the first war with Iraq? Why would you gain more from the second? Is it really worth the lives of even one American soldier to find out?
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