← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Zoroaster
Thread ID: 10559 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2003-10-17
2003-10-17 15:37 | User Profile
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Friday, October 17th Sick Of Conflict
Be honest. Don't you wish you had never heard of the Middle East? It's like being stuck in somebody else's nightmare.
It was OK when the Middle East meant to most Americans a little poetry by Kahlil Gibran, pistachio nuts, Bethlehem at Christmas, "Arabian Nights" and an occasional oil tanker. Now that our politicians have immersed us in its Byzantine conflicts, it means daily casualty lists, bleeding of the treasury and political rancor of the most poisonous type.
I have always been an unapologetic isolationist. If isolationism ââ¬â or, more properly termed, "armed neutrality" ââ¬â was good enough for George Washington, it is certainly good enough for me. We can view distant conflicts with interest and sympathy, like the plot of a novel, as long as we are not involved in them. But when we become part of the conflict, it's no longer any fun. Funerals are not fun. Young men living without legs or arms or eyesight is not fun. The threat of terrorism is no fun.
I'll be frank: There is no solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Israelis foreclosed on the two-state solution. There is not enough land left in the West Bank and Gaza for a Palestinian state ââ¬â there's only enough left for reservations where Palestinians can rot. That means the conflict will go on until one or the other is destroyed. That might be 100 years.
Nor is there any easy solution to Iraq. You are more likely to find camels with three humps than you are liberal democrats of the Western variety in Iraq. If there were an Academy Award for the dumbest and most naive idea in the world, it would go to the neoconservative notion that it would be a simple matter to depose Saddam Hussein and replace his government with a liberal democracy.
Too many Americans don't even understand our own form of liberal democracy and how long it took to evolve through many bloody centuries from its beginnings in the misty hills of England and Scotland. It is not an idea that can be transplanted onto another culture.
In Iraq there are Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds, all with different factions; there are Muslims and Christians; there are Sunnis and Shias, both with different factions; and if that weren't divisions enough, there are probably 500 to 1,000 tribes with intricate alliances and long-standing feuds. Americans who tout the virtues of diversity don't know what they are talking about. Countries with diverse populations almost always have a powerful central government as the only alternative to anarchy. Don't take my word for it. Look at the world. Countries with homogenous populations are stable; those with diverse populations are unstable or ruled by authoritarian governments.
Our natural allies are Europe and Russia. That should be strengthened into a partnership. Toward the rest of the world, and especially the Middle East, we should adopt a policy of strict neutrality. That would mean jettisoning the so-called special relationship with Israel, which is a huge liability. It would mean handing over Iraq to the Iraqis. To be neutral means we would do commercial business with anyone who wanted to, but we would otherwise never interfere in their internal affairs or take sides in their quarrels.
That is a doable policy, but it is the last thing the American imperial establishment wants. The American people will have to stage their own political revolution to get this country back on a sane track. Otherwise, we will follow the sorry path of every other empire and end up on the ash heap of history. As blessed as we are, we are not strong enough, militarily or financially, to rule the world.
Don't let the policy wonks beguile you with their own delusions. The American Army has not fought a foe anywhere close to its equal in manpower and technology since World War II. Don't be an Idi Amin and imagine we are world conquerors just because we've beaten Panama, Grenada, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Charley, as usual, makes good sense. The Anglo/American/Zionist Alliance has called the shots for Western Civilization since the Balfour Declaration and World War One. With ZOG firmly in control of Washington and an insidious policy of waging war against Israel's enemies in the Middle East firmly in place, it does not appear Charley or anyone else can save civilization from the machinations and wrath of god's eternially innocent paracites.
-Z-