Making Sense Out of Dangerous Nonsense

[CrisisPapers]

| Bernard Weiner |

I try to make sense of politics - it's what my doctorate implies I'm qualified to do - but often I am defeated. Reality is just too damn weird. And satire these days is almost superfluous. Here are three examples.

History tells us that longterm military occupations don't work, but countries continue to invade and occupy lands belonging to others. Then the occupiers seem shocked - shocked! - that the natives don't want them there.

Israel, for example, has a love-hate thing going with its occupation of Palestinian land. On the one hand, it knows that military occupations are self-defeating sappers of Israel's moral, economic and military strength, and so it makes moves to pull back within its borders, as it did in Gaza (but not yet in the West Bank). But then it permits itself to re-occupy, or at least re-invade, land that it left.

Two thirds of Americans know that the occupation of Iraq three years after Bush declared "mission accomplished" is reckless and nonsensical, and want the U.S. military to start exiting Iraq. Iraqis overwhelmingly have indicated that they'd prefer the U.S. start leaving as well or, at the very least, present a rough timetable for when that might start to happen.

But for both Israel and America, their occupations continue and appear to grow even worse. The very presence of these foreign troops on the ground, in Palestine and Iraq, is a large share of the problem, a running sore that creates a deepening infection in the local body politic, engendering a nationalistic resistance to throw the occupiers out. But the two military giants, each possessing overwhelming firepower, are caught in a quagmire of their own devising in trying to deal with shadowy, lightly-armed guerrillas who simply won't give up.

POWER AND HUMILIATION

In both Iraq and Palestine, the issue of humiliation is a constant. Israel continually, day after day, grinds the Palestinians' collective nose in their powerlessness; America uses its mighty arsenal to remind Iraqis who really controls their lives (and their deaths), and tries to impose a "democracy" from the outside.

If the U.S. is really interested in stabilizing the Middle East region, and diminishing the power of terrorist organizations that use that conflict as a rallying cry and recruiting tool, the logical first step would be to solve the Israel/Palestine conflict as quickly as possible. Instead, the Bush Administration does nothing, in effect serving an an enabler of the spiraling violence.

Both sides know roughly what needs to happen in order to effect a stablizing peace: Israel withdraws from its settlements to its pre-1967 borders and is guaranteed security; a geographically and economically viable Palestinian state is created in West Bank/Gaza; treaties are worked out on right-of-return, jobs and water and so on; neither side permits the occasional terrorist act to deter its dedication to maintaining the peace; and Jerusalem is administered by an international body that shows no favoritism to any country.

That's the clear way to peace, but both sides make sure not to go there. The only logical conclusion is that they are not ready yet to travel that path; each believes that just one more military push will bring it what it wants. And, basically, what it wants is for the other side to vanish. Ain't gonna happen, but desire knows no logic.

When both sides are ready to accept that the Other is not going to disappear but has genuine needs and desires that need to be satisfied, which realization will require some very real and painful compromises, then and only then can the road to peace be taken. Either it happens now - and, even amidst the current bloodshed, there are hopeful signs - or the slaughter continues for another generation or two, until both sides realize enough is enough.

A LESSON FROM VIETNAM

With regard to Iraq, the U.S. (finally!) has to learn the lesson of Vietnam: When occupying a foreign nation, with no outlook other than endless stalemate, you either leave on your own, with as much dignity and face-saving gestures as possible, or you get drawn further into an endless quagmire (death by a thousand cuts) and eventually have to leave anyway looking like a musclebound superpower defeated by a ragtag guerrilla army.

Even Bush's generals know all this, but the policy has been otherwise decided by arrogant, ideologically-driven civilians, in this case mainly by Cheney and Rumsfeld. They will "stay the course" and the U.S. will have to leave ignominiously later. Why? Because they want those permanent military bases in that area of the world, they want that oil and gas, they want to try to impose their will and idea of the future on that volatile region of the world, and because Bush and his bunker crew are psychologically incapable of admitting they were wrong from the very beginning.

If the war results in tens of thousands more killed and wounded, and bankrupts the nation, so be it, according to Bush & Co. In any event, Bush has told us, winding up the Iraq war will happen on his successor's watch, so the Bush Administration doesn't have to accept any responsibility for the debacle and the deaths.

OPENING THE FRIGHT PLAYBOOK

With less than four months to go until the November mid-term election, it's deja vu all over again, as Yogi said. Karl Rove simply opens his fright playbook, the same one he used in 2000, 2002 and 2004, and attempts to play the electorate - and especially the putative opposition Democrats - like a xylophone. Terrorists here, terrorists there, terrorists everywhere. And, by and large, the mainstream media publishes the fright stories straight, without seriously raising any major questions, and the Democrats, terrified of being labeled "soft on terrorism," buy into the Republican agenda. I don't get it.

How else to interpret the major, unrelenting news coverage given to the supposed Miami cell of hardcore jihadists planning on blowing up Chicago's Sears Tower, or the Islamist conspirators allegedly planning to blow up the train tunnels leading into Manhattan?

In the first instance, a paid informant inside the group got them interested in the Sears Tower idea, and, voila!, they're busted for "planning" to bring down that massive structure - quite by "coincidence" just as the American election campaign moves into its final 100 days. In truth, it appears that there were no Sears Tower "plans," just a lot of bloviating about what these wannabe jihadists would like to do someday to the dastardly Americans.

With regard to the New York City story, apparently untrained Islamists, most of whom didn't even know each other, shared online ideas about exploding a device inside the tunnels, the effect of which would be to cause chaos in the New York subway system. (The Bush forces raced to the microphones to predict that Lower Manhattan, especially the economic centers, would be flooded, forgetting the laws of physics that would keep the water in the river since in order to flood the city, there would have to be strong pumps pushing the water up above sea level, which is where Manhattan resides.) Further, the FBI is relying on a captured Islamist militant picked up in Lebanon; until we know whether he was psychologically or physically tortured, what he "confessed" to means next to nothing.

No, friends, the timing and especially the lack of specifics and evidence - indeed, about all we have are allegations of what some Bad Guys were talking about doing, some day, maybe - appears to be just part of the pre-election fear-building machinery cranking up in rather cumbersome and obvious ways. Warning: Karl Rove construction ahead; proceed with caution and lots of grains of salt.

OSAMA BIN WHO?

Here are Rove and his minions warning about Islamist terror-cells, even telling a tale that the would-be New York tunnel-bombers got their go-ahead from the leader of al-Qaida, but they're closing down the CIA's anti-terrorist unit whose function is to locate and neutralize Osama bin Laden. Explain that one. See what I mean about reality outstripping the possibilities of satire? (Same goes with the U.S. military hiring out-of-work skinheads to fight in Iraq. And then Bush & Co. are puzzled by Iraqis' negative reactions to having Muslim-hating, racist American troops on their soil. You can't make this stuff up.)

Either the pre-election fright stories being told are riddled with untruths, or the Bush Administration needs the bogeyman of Osama bin Laden out there helping scare the U.S. population into submission. It's been that way since 9/11.

Without bin Laden on the loose, Bush & Co. would not have virtual free rein to do whatever it feels it needs to do in its "war on terrorism" - a permanent war against a political/military tactic, which permits virtual carte blanche domestically (police-state powers) and more wars abroad (Iran? Syria? Venezuela? North Korea?). Similarly, bin Laden needs a clumsy, rampaging America so that he can build his base of support and foment more Islamist mischief around the world. Osama and George - the dance of the tarantulas.

(Am I discounting that there are terrorists out there who really want to, and maybe even are planning, to do American harm? Of course not. But the way the Bush Administration goes about its business - torture, occupations, bombings, violations of law, extra-constitutional authoritarianism, appointing incompetents in key positions, etc. - makes us citizens less secure, not more secure.)

It's a crazyquilt world and all you and I can do is try to make some sense of it, even though I know it's virtually impossible to piece it all together. Welcome to the hunt.

-- BW

[Demit]

1. Nice analysis. Do you have a link to where this appears?

[Bernard Weiner]

2. Bernard Weiner replies

My new essays appear here at DU the same day as they appear on The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org); drop on by and check us out. The URL for the essay at Crisis Papers is >> www.crisispapers.org/essays6w/sense.htm <<. Thanks the kind words.

[PATRICK]

3. Maybe not a question of "sense"

The face, as bad enough as it is, is that Israeli and US policy, actually united on this level as well, pretend that this muscular discipline exertion of power is acceptable to the masses who want security. Circular reasoning is great fro keeping the masses spinning in circles. One real agenda is not immediately apparent, nor does it enjoy mass appeal at this stage. That is there is a cruel policy to destroy Muslim power, period.

If there WAS peace, the totally liberal way, and even the Muslim masses join in to reclaim tolerance and pluralism, the chief RW fear remains. The Muslims will breed Israel out of existence from inside and out
exponentially as prosperity increases. Worldwide Judaism is not universally enamored of the RW Israeli state control. The best solution would become a pluralistic Israel, all theocracy unthroned forever and Jerusalem a free city, a religious shrine- not a capital- for all three major faiths. Of course, Christians have other centers and Muslims Mecca, but these are the geopolitical breaks.

Facing a peaceful Armageddon of their nationalistic dreams added to absolute fear that the opposite will happen(destruction in a bloodbath) the Israeli RW ignores South Africa and other examples of peace. Of course, South Africa meant that the breeding majority gave generous concessions to the white minority to avoid the national abyss.

But into this mix is added the American RW, profiteers and posers all, who give false lip service to all policies except their own. The empathy and alliance is surface only. The Right is a house divided when it gets its mitts on the first loot. The American policy is split also in its own way as we know. There now we have American divided nonsense invading the ME disaster like two troubled galaxies colliding. If peace was the only thing desired- as it is by the vast majority first and foremost- it should be easy. because it is not easy, neither peace nor democracy has anything at all to do with the seeming insane displays of power. It is about money and power for a few and a view of the world that is pyramidal not horizontal. To the minions involved in all the subsequent tragic dramas and the masses infected with hatreds and fears, nothing they do has any real meaning.

[snappyturtle]

4. Three words......

Military Industrial Complex. That is what makes all this possible and sensible to those so inclined.
Armchair quarterbacks realize that the Israeli/Palestinian problems must be solved to truly effect any type of resolution in the Middle East. Rove's fear machine and Osama's existence both contribute to the health of the military industrial complex. Money. Greed. The rich can stay out of the nasty part of the wars and fear while energizing their rich lifestyle.

Edit: K&R!

[Time for change]

5. Thank you for this very informative analysis

Regarding the Bush motives for "staying the course" in Iraq, what about these two additional, but related reasons?

1) War profiteering for Bush supporters - no-bid contracts, and then little oversight of those contracts

2) Withdrawal would mean plummetting approval ratings for Bush. He has so alienated a majority of the U.S. population that nothing he does at this point will re-capture them. All he has is his hard core base. If he withdraws, even large proportions of his base will abandon him for "losing the war".

[Demeter]

6. Manifestly Nonsensical Destiny

I blame the right-wing wacko idolators (to call them religious is to blaspheme)...their insane reasoning underpins everything these crooks have done, from Ken Lay onward. Those motivated purely by greed use the idolators as cover, so that some scent of "godliness" covers up the gore.

Where and when and how it will end? Not in DC, too late, and badly.

[Dembo98]

7. Just to play devil's advocate...

If we look at the occupation of Japan, Italy and Germany after WWII, Korea in the 50's, etc the pattern seems to be that these places where we stay and commit to, end up being better off. I don't know that we can say we occupied Viet Nam, we never toppled their government and large forces where there for a relatively short time. We still have forces in Japan, Germany, Italy, Korea and these places seem to have become relatively productive and benign nations on a world stage. So i don't know if I agree with your comment about occupations. I think the US is maybe the only one that gets occupation done right. Your thoughts?

[nealmhughes]

9. Japan and Germany were utterly defeated. The people had nowhere

else to turn except for the occupation troops. In contrast, the French occupation of the Rhineland after the first world war was not one of utterly defeated landscape and people. Iraq and Afghanistan are not utterly defeated, they are disfunctional with a modicum of civil socio-economic activity there. Nor is Palestine utterly defeated.
That is why there is a tremendous difference between the types of occupations which we see. The South in many parts was utterly defeated...people were tired of hunger and roving bands of criminals and begrudingly accepted Union occupation, facing the alternative.
My friend Joe Danielson is currently beginning a dissertation on the first Union occupation of the Tennessee Valley following the Battle of Shiloh and the havok that was wrought by the occupation. People were ready to get back to a "normal" life, but not ready to be labelled collaborationists and the Union was undermanned to prevent CSA excursions and partisan ("terrorist") raids to prevent any semblence to normalcy in 1863, as there was still war waging nearby.
I do not find the Japanese and German occupations to be any way similar of the US occupation of Iraq.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

13. Dembo98, playing devil's advocate. What a surprise. n/t

MKJ

[dorktv]

14. The difference between them is the level of commitment right after

defeat. The US was committed to creating viable societies right away after the fall of Germany/Italy/Japan. Japan most notably.

It can be done, and has been done (I think Kosovo is one of the other places) but it does require some upfront intense commitment. We could have easily done something about the problems that we now face in Iraq by following postwar reconstruction, ordering troops to guard weapons dumps, and not disbanding the armed Saddam army five seconds after we took over.

But there was no commitment to doing so and things fell apart.

Israel is another tinderbox. It only exists because of the Holocaust in my opinion, the Zionists were actually buying land and working towards creating a Jewish state but the violence that erupted in 1948 was more due to a people having had the worse thing happen to them that could happen to anyone and demanding that they have a safe haven for themselves. Israel even with the daily attacks, being surrounded by enemies that hate them (and who play with the Palestinians for their own aims) and all the demands of a country that requires hi levels of security still has a fairly vibrant community. They have done a lot of things wrong but they are not going to go quietly in the night. I really think that if Hamas had been treated with respect right away, we probably would not be in the worse mess we are now.

[bemildred]

16. It isn't just a question of staying long enough.

You have to do things right, you have to govern well, and there are a number of other factors. Consider the military and economic strength of the USA relative to the rest of the world at that time, right after WWII. We really did bestride the world like a colossus at that time, and it is that overpowering advantage that allowed us to succeed then, and that is lacking now, and in the other instances cited.

[Peeves]

8. While I share your view that the US should not have invaded ...

IRAQ, I must ask what should Israel do when being attacked (and by a regime that has sworn Israel's destruction)? :hippie:

[BridgeTheGap]

11. Self-defense is a right

an eye for an eye, etc. only begets more violence. Some months back, I heard the leader of Liberal World Judaism speak - he is also a Lt. Col. in the Israeli reserves. He laid out the differences with-in Judaism - that some jews are exclusionary - God's favored people. Other Jews (such as the person I heard speaking) say that they must find a way to reconcile with the Palestinians (or any enemy for that matter). He was well spoken and made sense. I believe if Israel adopted the approach he was advocating, the extreme elements of Islam/Palestine would end up alienated in their own communities. People get tired of the death, destruction and displacement - but they also want to believe that justice can be achieved. Very important to draw the distinction between justice and revenge.

[dorktv]

15. Which is one of the reasons Hamas should have been treated as

an proper government instead of everyone getting all hysterical. Looking at the non-violent part of Hamas, they seem to be responsible and not corrupt so one could in fact trust them with more money in an attempt to get them to see the benefits of not being violent.

Now they feel there are no benefits to being nonviolent because they followed the democratic steps and everyone seems to hate them even more.

[Peeves]

17. Sadly, I'm afraid that violence may be the only thing Hamas ...

understands. Hamas has made no attempt to make us believe otherwise.

It's easy to talk about non-violence when you aren't having suicide/homicide bombings and kidnappings in your own backyard on a daily basis.

[dorktv]

19. A day or two before the election that gave them a majority NPR's

local corrospondent interviewed a woman who was asked who she planned on voting for. She said Hamas because they did what the PLO could not do and got her family legal water. Before that they had to steal water to live.

That is right: stealing water to live...the situation the Palestinians are in is horrible. Hamas inside the West Bank and Gaza Strip is a lot different then the Hamas in Lebanon. The ones in the territory probably would have agreed to a recognition to Israel in exchange for things their people desperately need. They are violent but they also are responsible for social services, schools (which we could attatch a string to the money saying no more hate teaching in schools), something to do, somewhere to be and somewhere to belong. So to say that all they understand is violence means that you may want to reexamine what exactly Hamas does.

We had a chance and it appears as if it was blown. Par for course with this Administration.

[undergroundpanther]

10. This goes deep into

Our very beginnings..
The Emotional Life of Nations
by Lloyd deMause

Chapter 2--The Gulf War as a Mental Disorder

"He's going to get his ass kicked!"

---- George Bush

Empathy for the innocent dead was totally missing. We didn't even notice the genocide of children was happening. The civilians who died were, of course, not just "collateral damage," since, according to one authority, "the Pentagon has admitted it targeted civilian structures both to demoralize the populace and exacerbate the effects of sanctions."84 As a result, five years later water was polluted, garbage had to be dumped into the streets and hospitals were nearly inoperative. An estimated 1,000,000 to 6,000,000 more Iraqis would eventually die, according to the Atomic Energy Authority again mostly children both from the embargo and from the effects over decades of American use of depleted uranium wastes in the 65,000 uranium-tipped missiles that were fired.85 Those children still alive despite our genocidal efforts were reported by War Watch as being "the most traumatized children of war ever described."86 The war had accomplished our purpose. America held a massive victory parade, and the President told the American people that "the darker side of human nature" had been defeated more accurately, the darker side of our own psyche had been restaged-assuring us that our nation had entered a New World Order.

The sacrificial ritual had been carried out exactly as planned: by a genocide of women and children. The nation had been cleansed of its emotional pollution. The president's popularity rating rose to 91 percent, the highest of any American leader in history. The stock market soared. "Bush...restored America's can-do spirit....It felt good to win."87 The country had been united by slaughter as it had never been by any positive achievement. Editorials across the country congratulated the President on his having "defeated Evil," and speculated on what the New World Order would look like and when it might begin. The victors no longer felt depressed. America's twenty-eighth war-perhaps mankind's millionth-had again restored our potency. We felt as if we had been reborn.

Find out more..Here:
http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/eln02_gulf.html
http://www.psychohistory.com/

[tocqueville]

12. Tom Engelhardt sees it in a broader perspective

The destabilization game

One of these days, some scholar will do a little history of the odd moments when microphones or recording systems were turned on or left on, whether on purpose or not, and so gave us a bit of history in the raw. We have plenty of American examples of this phenomenon, ranging from the secret White House recordings of President John F Kennedy's meetings with his advisers during the Cuban missile crisis (so voluminous as to become multi-volume publications) and Richard Nixon's secret tapes (minus those infamous 18 1/2 minutes), voluminous enough so that you could spend the next 84 days nonstop listening to what's been made publicly available, to the moment in 1984 when a campaigning President Ronald Reagan quipped on the radio during a microphone check (supposedly unaware that it was on): "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

Just last week, a lovely little example of this sort of thing came our way and, 22 years after Ronald Reagan threatened to atomize the "evil empire", Russia was still the subject. Last Thursday, at a private lunch of G8 foreign ministers in Moscow, an audio link to the media was left on, allowing reporters to listen in on a running series of arguments (or as the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler put it, "several long and testy exchanges") between US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov over a collective document no one would remember thenceforth

The whole event was a grim, if minor, comedy of the absurd. According to the Post account, "Reporters traveling with Rice transcribed the tape of the private luncheon but did not tell Rice aides about it until after a senior State Department official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity as usual, assured them that ‘there was absolutely no friction whatsoever' between the two senior diplomats". (What better reminder do we need that so much anonymous sourcing granted by newspapers turns out to be a mix of unreliable spin and outright lies readers would be better off without?) In, as Kessler wrote, "a time of rising tension in US-Russian relations", the recording even caught "the clinking of ice in glasses and the scratch of cutlery on plates", not to speak of the intense irritation of both parties.

"Sometimes the tone smacked of the playground" is the way a British report summed the encounter up, but decide for yourself. Here's a sample of what "lunch" sounded like - the context of the discussion was Iraq (especially outrage over the kidnapping and murder of four employees of the Russian embassy in Baghdad):

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HG08Aa02.html

Tom sees it as a general destabilization "game" aimed particularly at Russia and China (explaining the US presence in Iraq and other deeds).

IMHO the Israeli question is not directly comparable, even if in the beginning Israel was a pawn in the conquest of the ME.

[mkb]

18. Trying Hard to Understand

     Just When you think you have it all figured out, you
realize there is always a lot more to learn.  I like the way
that this article demonstrates that there are many reasons for
politicians and people doing what they do.
     We must keep in mind that the right-wing hierarchy wants
to dominate people everywhere, not just in Iraq.  Try to
comprehend the reasons that they have for subjugating people
here at home as well as abroad.  The Project for A New
American Century (PNAC) people like Cheney, who outlined there
hopes for global dominance, are pretty repressive on we at
home as well, if they get the chance.  The document they wrote
in the 90's plotted the goal of hegemony and dominance in the
Middle East before there was any major terrorist strikes.  
They declared that they needed a "new Pearl Harbor"
incident (undoubtedly something like the 9-11 attacks) to
provide the justification for invading Iraq and the Middle
East.  
     But there is much more to this in my opinion than just
Iraq.  Terrorism is also being used as a way to spy on people,
gather information about their personal behavior, and
generally create a security apparatus that monitors people's
activities, including internet use, to no doubt use against
them if they think they are progressive people or resisting
the dominant hierarchy.  How deep the iceberg goes as far as
other objectives go I will leave to my intelligent friends out
there to grapple with.
     I think people who are working and hoping for a positive
and progressive situation for our country and the world, and
who are beginning to think about things this way have to make
important decisions about learning and participating in
society.
     I think I should stress to benevolent people in this
category that you should think about how authorities monitor
your activities, including internet use, and financial
transactions, and try figure out the best approach to either
avoid their scrutiny or throw them off the track regarding
your identity and activities.
     There are people on the internet like Stan Goff, who have
some important and interesting things to say, but who I think
are suspiciously misleading as well.  Just With anything else,
you have to consider the risks and rewards of what somebody
like him is saying.  But at the same time, realize that he has
a military backround that raises doubt, at least in my mind,
as to his sincerity.  There are Reasons Why People are Afraid
to consider what people like him have to say, and not without
reason.  I think many opinions are stated there and elsewhere
on the internet that are truthful and correct to a degree,
only to detour people from a positive course farther down the
road.  I just reiterate that people accessing information on
the internet have to be thoughtful and careful before
proceeding.