As a rule, dictatorships guarantee safe streets and terror of the doorbell. In democracy the streets may be unsafe after dark, but the most likely visitor in the early hours will be the milkman.
--Adam Michnik

A return to the rant.

Summary: It was obvious to me that the war in Iraq was a combination of ideological hubris and naked greed. It's been similarly obvious to me that American bureaucrats and news reporters can not envision a world not structured by hierarchy and control, where there is no Microsoft Outlook scheduler dinging when it's time to head down to the conference room for an all-hands meeting.

Details: I was going to write this as a letter to the New York Times, but they never publish my letters so it seems pointless to send off another missive into the void. The good thing about the NYT letter format is that it forces me to attempt to limit my message. This blog imposes no such limitations, so I can even write these meta-commentaries. Yeah, they're boring, ok.

Read this article about the Iraq insurgency. It was obvious to me the moment there was even the slightest murmur about a possible war in Iraq that it was a bad idea. I assumed that any thinking person would see it for what it is and was: a transparently crass bit of nonsense motivated by various ills: neo-con fantasies of world-domination (Rumsfeld, Wolfivitz, Richard Perle, etc.); greedy oil barons (Cheney); greedy military contractor profiteering (Cheney, Randy Cunningham), etc. Half sick profiteering and half absurdist ideology that is essentially a contiuation of the crusades. I'll stop myself there, as I'm sure you can read plenty of whining liberals complaining or ranting about the war. I'm not saying anything new and either you already agree with me or you don't.

I thought instead I'd try and share something that is obvious to me, but maybe it's not so obvious to everyone else. Very little is known about the Iraq "insurgency" other than that a lot of angry militia members will stop at nothing to kill people. First, let's start with the word "insurgency". Right away, this word implies organization. Look it up in your dictionary. You'll find something like this.

An expert from the Rand Corporation is quoted as saying about the insurgency that "They have adopted a structure that assures their longevity." This is classic. First of all, what does it mean to adopt? Generally, it is when an entity consciously chooses something. So our speaker here can not imaging a reality where you don't rationally deliberate amongst a menu of choices and then pick one. Further more, he assumes that the impetus for the non-choice was the need for a structure that assures longevity. This assumes that there is any structure at all to the "insurgency" and that it or its adherents are aware of the value of their "longevity".

Clearly this man can't imagine what it would be like if an army of foreigners whom you hated even more than your sick, twisted, cruel and sinister leader landed in your country and told you that if you follow the rules, you too can have blonde hair, fake tits, and McDonalds, all day every day. Actually, that message of nirvana is not that different from the rewards promised to suicide bombers: a spot in the harem of heaven full of virgins, yours for the deflowering.

I could go on and on deconstructing the writing of the Times and its quotes, but I hope the point is obvious: you can't assume anything about a country and culture about which you know nothing from first-hand experience. It is beyond hubris and imperialism. Further more, and this is true for computer programming or invading countries: you must very carefully scrutinize your assumptions. When your project begins, you must check that your assumptions that you made when planning the project are inline with what's really on the ground.

For instance, if it is an assumption on your list that "people want and need democracy" and then you show up and they don't know what it is, nor whether they want it, you have a problem with your project and you need to reconsider your plans. The wise man even goes beyond the call and explores the assumptions BEFORE his project is underway. He (or she) might choose to go visit Iraq and learn about its people, its customs, its history, and the many colonial powers that had failed to tame it in the past.

The neo-cons also assume that people want "democracy"; that they know what it is; and that we have a more or less untroubled democracy at home. We have non-competitve elections for most congressional seats, since Republicans gerrymandered election districts throughout the 90's -- and Democrats did the same thing before them, though not quite as crassly. At least they waited every 10 years, unlike the Texans. But that's another story.

The congressional representatives themselves are beholden to special interests and mindless ideology, whether on the left or right (if you have New York Times TimesSelect, read this article). President Bush was elected by the Supreme Court in 2000. The White House and Congress are involved in countless dubious financial arrangements with every company performing contract work for the government, from Katrina clean-up to feeding the troops in Iraq to re-building Iraq's oil infrasctructure. I find myself wondering how anyone on earth can take any of this crap seriously. Who are we to "export" democracy when we have oligarchy at home, when our own government has been taken prisoner.

The real question for me is, does our government more close resemble the government of Nigeria or Saudi Arabia? I think we've managed to outdo both of them, by adopting the oil-driven corruption of the former, and masking it behind the religious fervor of the latter. I can't remember who said it, but "enemies become alike".

Which brings me to another obvious point that no one talks about. Our real enemy is Saudi Arabia. They are the ones who funded the 9/11 terrorists. 19 of those terrorists were Saudis. Their corrupt regime that leaves their people ignorant and impoverished, living like wandering desert nomads while they comingle with prostitutes in Beirut and Monaco and drink Veuve Cliquot. They are sitting on a powder keg of corruption and evil that is going to explode very nastily. Of course, the solution to the problem is not to start a war with them, but to engage with them diplomatically, and take a real moral stand for what's right. You could do something crazy, like stop buying their oil, to send a message. American business interests run the whole oil show down there, and that's the real reason we don't shut it down. Oh yeah, and they are our second largest supplier of oil and petroleum.

The EIA website is actually a fabulous resource. Check out their report on Saudi Arabia.

By the way, in case it wasn't obvious, the implication of the quote at the beginning is that we have safe streets in America, but we're all afraid of getting the Knock from the FBI because we were surfing the Al Jazeera website one time too many.