We Break the World. . . Help Repair It

[bigtree]

To thee old cause!
Thou peerless, passionate, good cause,
Thou stern, remorseless, sweet idea,
Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands,
After a strange sad war, great war for thee,
(I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be really fought, for thee,)
These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee.

- Walt Whitman, from 'Leaves of Grass' To Thee Old Cause (1871; 1881)


We used to understand, progressives here and elsewhere who are glossing this U.S. military response to the humanitarian crisis atop that mountain in northern Iraq. Glossing over the fact we should know well, that our military presence and action in Iraq is an irresistible lure for individuals looking to do battle with America; in this case, individuals who view America as an enemy of their religion.

What doesn't seem to be understood by progressives here who are rightly concerned about the safety of the Kurdish civilians is that the U.S. military attacks - our country's military presence and activities - are ultimately counterproductive to the goals of eliminating any threat that comes from the fundamentalist groups fomenting violence in Iraq - or anywhere else, for that matter.

Opposition to U.S. military action in Iraq goes deeper than just advocating non-violence, which is likely not the solution to protecting the Kurdish men, women, and children trapped and besieged where they fled by the self-identified Islamic insurgents. It's an opposition to exactly the same 'dumb-war' behavior that President Obama correctly described early in his presidency. It's the misguided notion that the U.S. is indispensable in these matters.

It's the twisted logic that 'we broke it,' therefore, we have to fix it. Except, fixing it means to this administration and military - as it meant to the Bush administration and military - fomenting even more violence in the vain and hopeless aim of ending it.

It's not a matter of just leaving these people to die, as many describe the position of opponents of U.S. military intervention - other nations are more suited to help them and we should use our energy and whatever influence we have to encourage them.

It's about the realization that our country, having already broken the country with our destabilizing, destructive, and opportunistic war waged for greed and petty political purposes, can scarcely hope to repair it using the same destabilizing and destructive violence.

As Bush's own spy agencies correctly cautioned in their 2006 intelligence estimate, our military activity in Iraq had the effect of fostering and fueling even more individuals bent on violent resistance to U.S., our allies, and our interests, than they were able to put down.

It should be no surprise at all to see the report today from this President's intelligence agencies that our military presence and activity in Iraq - however altruistic the mission - is having the exact same effect of drawing more individuals looking to do battle with our nation, from around the globe, to rally to this emerging insurgent group's deadly cause.

Our nation has, years ago in our invasion and occupation in Iraq, forfeited any moral authority we may believe we have which would distinguish in the minds of many Iraqis - and many individuals around the world who associate their religion with the twisted and contradictory fundamentalism promoted by groups like ISIS/ISIL or al-Qaeda - the killing and atrocities of this insurgent group from our own vigilantist, or charitable violence.

We may well feel this is our fight, or our responsibility to step in and rescue the Kurdish civilians, but we are unable to do so without fomenting even more reprisals against them and even more bloodshed among them after we've landed our warplanes and steered our combat carriers toward home.

There's nothing at all charitable or altruistic in any of that.

I'm watching a film with Edward Norton, 'Leaves of Grass' about a pot grower and his mostly innocent twin brother who killed a rival and others with the aim of putting past problems to rest and moving on to a drug and violence-free life with his expectant wife - setting off a chain of violence which ended in his own death and several others; along with the near-death of his innocent twin.

In one scene, the innocent twin went to the Rabbi of the man his brother had killed to tell her that it wasn't a hate crime, as his brother had made him promise to as he was laying on the ground dying from a gunshot wound.

The rabbi asked him if that was all he wanted to say and the innocent brother asked her, why, why do we . . . ?

"Because we're animals," the woman Rabbi answered, and our brains trick us into thinking we're not . . . We break the world." she said. "Help repair it."

I can't think of anything more concise or profound to say about our country's actions than that.

We break the world. . . help repair it.

We break the world. . . help repair it.


Whitman's poem continuing. . .

(A war O soldiers not for itself alone,
Far, far more stood silently waiting behind, now to advance in this book.)

Thou orb of many orbs!
Thou seething principle! thou well-kept, latent germ! thou centre!
Around the idea of thee the war revolving,
With all its angry and vehement play of causes,
(With vast results to come for thrice a thousand years,)
These recitatives for thee,--my book and the war are one,
Merged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee,
As a wheel on its axis turns, this book unwitting to itself,
Around the idea of thee.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Learn from it.

And never again give out military equipment to anyone, 'friend' or 'foe', so that it doesn't then turn up being used to slaughter civilians.

Perhaps take the annual limits off our refugee immigration policies, and allow Yazidi to come live in the US.

[bigtree]

2. when will we ever learn?

...

[Jackpine Radical]

3. The answer is blowin' in the wind.

I have been advocating peace & nonviolence since the 60's. It really gets old to see this same shit going on and on and on. We are such a fucked up species that I despair and am coming to see us as a cancer in the biosphere.

[bigtree]

4. it wasn't in vain, JR

. . . I was a peace advocate in the '70's, in every way influenced by the activism, advocacy, and idealism of your generation which preceded mine.

My children, who became fully aware of the world around them in the '90's are advocates for peace, as well. Try not to despair.





. . . thanks for the kick. I really needed it.

[bigtree]

5. »

[bigtree]

6. kick

[ancianita]

7. The way I see it, "we" assume blame here for privately paid small groups who foment violence

that exponentially grows to the point that governmental forces can't contain it, get beaten, then ask us to somehow come in and contain it. We shouldn't use military force as mop ups for global money's paid skirmishes. The mess here is sectarian competition for dominance in this oil region.

As a recent Frontline articles states, we can say, so far, "Today, you are either a Shia, a Sunni, a Christian, a Kurd. You are not an Iraqi first. For now, it seems Iraq is no more..." Until Iraqis can form a government that represents all people here, ISIS will very likely continue its march..." and that we didn't 'break' Iraq as much as fail to get it back up and running.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/iraq-war-on-terror/losing-iraq/for-now-it-seems-iraq-is-no-more/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FrontlineEditorsNotes+(FRONTLINE+-+Latest+Stories)

Iraq's 'breakage' right now is from a different source. In the absence of clear media coverage here, "we" are too quick to assume responsibility. 'We' might not have left Iraq better than we found it -- because, it was, after all, our resource war -- but we helped re-organize a government that we hoped would run the region but were seen as ripe for sectarian attack, since Sunni Persian Gulf money has flowed in to Sunni extremist groups that cross Iraq borders, bent on sweeping away the old Shia dominance.

I'm not buying the "we" have to fix it stance at this point. Most of the 'we' in America are against involvement in this sectarian conflict. If "humanitarian" is the rubric used by this president for slipping in arms, then he'll just contribute to the mess against our wishes.