By Robert Bridge
The
dogs of war are barking in the backyard and some deranged minds seem determined
to swing open the gates – again. At the same time, the American people,
the only ones who can stop the savagery, are saddled with long-term debt,
deficits and depression.
As
the new age Romans mission-creep toward the next doomed Middle East
neighborhood, this time in Syria, when does the quaint phrase “experiencing
déjà vu” become just a polite way of saying we are apathetic spectators at
the Circus Maximus? Does uttering mindless platitudes while the swords are
swinging make us accomplices to death and destruction? Do our politicians – the
nice guys who bailed out the bankers to the tune of trillions while we got cash
for clunkers – really care about innocent civilians abroad who are getting
caught in the crossfire?
By
playing the knight in shining armor on behalf of every oppositional
groundswell, we are actually encouraging these revolutionary uprisings from the
start. As the Arab Spring shows, the opponents of the ruling authorities are
seizing the reins of power through street violence, which seems to be the
preferred method of political campaigning these days.
The
opponents of vanquished Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, for example, did not
have to prove their political prowess to win power. They only had to show up
and demonstrate their staying power until NATO air support was called in.
Eventually, the opposition revealed their true colors, however, when they
dragged Gaddafi from a hole, Hussein-style, before summarily executing him. No
trial, no judge, no jury, no worry. Welcome to the brave new political
jungle where the side with the best crowd control always wins.
Essentially,
the western powers are bankrolling unproven political wannabes not with hard
cash, which is bad enough, but with overwhelming firepower. This opens the door
to crimes of worse magnitude than would have been the case had nobody
interfered in the first place. For example, if the Syrian political opposition
understand, as they certainly must, the infinite power of global communication,
then they will also understand the effectiveness of sending a message
(tweeting, texting, whatever) that government forces committed an “atrocity.”
Even if they have not.
Consider
the May 25 massacre in the village of Houla. Nobody yet has been able to prove
beyond a shadow of doubt the identity of the perpetrators behind that barbaric
event, which saw the murder of 108 people, mostly women and children. The
opposition claims government forces hired mercenaries known as Shabiha
to carry out the attack. However, the government of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad maintains that armed groups were determined to sabotage UN peace talks
(on May 15, one day before a UN Security Council meeting on Syria, militants
carried out a massacre in the town of Homs, while the Houla attack coincided
with a visit by UN negotiator Kofi Annan). Why would Assad, of all people, be
opposed to ending the violence that threatens to topple his government, and
possibly far worse?
To
date, western forces have thrown their support behind the political opposition
in Egypt, Libya and most infamously in Iraq. And how is that working? Egypt is
witnessing a tense standoff between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military,
while the new Libyan authorities have just detained four members of the
International Criminal Court who were in town to provide a defense attorney to
Gaddafi’s son. So much for planting the seeds of democracy. Meanwhile, many
Americans are still scratching their heads over the “preemptive” attack on
Iraq, which never had weapons of mass destruction or a hand in the terrorist
attacks of 9/11.
Yet,
we still have not learned the lessons of Iraq. In fact, some people are now
twisting that failed operation to fit the new mission statement. A writer for
Haaretz argued that the “world must intervene before 'Iraqization' of
Syria,” reasoning that “the collapse of the Syrian army and Assad's
regime is liable to lead to the ‘Iraqization’ of the country, in such a way
that it will no longer be clear who controls it.”
Have
we already forgotten that it was the US-led invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003
that prompted the “Iraqization” of Iraq in the first place? Yes, Saddam
Hussein was no nice guy, but Iraq itself was more or less a normal state before
the US occupation.
Perhaps
this is what Russian President Vladimir Putin partially meant when he once
called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical
catastrophe of the century.” Although the momentous event triggered severe
dislocations across Russia and beyond, it also gave the United States an
opportunity to behave like a veritable beast on the human stage. Now, after
some 20 years of snorting and licking the mirror of power, the world’s solitary
superpower, saying no-no-no to rehab, continues to do what it does best: acting
like an infantile Bam-Bam from the Flintstones. So where is the homegrown
American opposition to rein in these military misadventures? It's gone missing
in action.
If
you were planning to conquer the world, or at least a broad swath of it, the
war would necessarily start at home. After all, no general worth his salt would
rush into battle with his rear exposed. You’d have to muzzle the media,
severely curtail political choice and dissent, while preaching to the world
about democracy and human rights to cover your tracks. You’d have to construct
the mother of all propaganda machines, which proclaims over every available
wavelength that it’s the best darn civilization since Atlantis sunk to its watery
grave three thousands years ago. It would be a bit like decorating the halls of
a mental asylum with idyllic nature scenes. You’d also have to hire an army of
loud-mouth talking heads to shout down any and all dissenters, accuse them of
being conspiracy theorists and lunatics and commies, while keeping a
paramilitary police force on the standby 24/7 should the bullying tactics fail.
You’d
have to spoon-feed the populace with a liberal dose of anti-depressants, Jersey
Shore, American Idol and 24-hour shopping channels with easy credit to prevent
them from giving a moment’s thought to real-time, third-dimensional issues. You
could also fuel battles over trifling cultural issues, like homosexuals in the
military, Mel Gibson’s latest rant and Charlie Sheen’s complicated love life.
What we are left with after the smoke has cleared bears no resemblance to a
classic, text-book democracy. What we are left with is an obese, drug-addled
Burlesque Empire, bursting at the seams with electronic circuses, cocaine and corn
puffs, physically and mentally incapable of finding the remote control when the
scenes of war become too unappetizing.
We
are overstretched at home, and like despotic Rome, overstretched overseas. Now
it is anybody’s guess where this depressing joyride will take us.
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