Overcoming Divide and Rule

Here is a concluding section to "An Important History To Remember About Iraq," the full body of which will appear in the next Strategy Review (formerly Strategy Gazette) newsletter.

The US invasion, occupation, nation-building, and counter-guerilla/terrorist war has done nothing less than unleash a revolution of the culture in Iraq. The complete political, economic, and social revision of that nation has thrown the norm in a new direction with no known destination point or stated US grand strategy (political policy) set as goal. The conundrum of US policy can follow different paths.
First, either the war, and the brutality, death and destruction, need to continue, even escalate or expand beyond Iraq’s borders. Indeed, only Nixon could go to China; and he could only get out of Vietnam by invading Cambodia. On this path, Iraq would remain one unified political and economic entity, under US protection or under the divide and rule policy of replacement power or coalition. Only China or Russia could fill as a replacement power at some point in the future. Iraq stays a fiction of a nation with present cultural differences, and it would continue to play the pawn in the transnational, post-Industrial game of the politics of oil and religion. This course only leads to more instability, and inevitably to Iraq as a barren, uninhabitable desert which the Romans called a “Carthaginian peace.” It means nothing less than the genocide of Iraq’s “people” and a minority, locally-managed dictatorship of those who remain. This is no better than Saddam Hussein. Nothing would be gained and much has already been lost. This course happens with or without the complete withdrawal of the US military. The war goes on and grows bigger.
The second course, a little more satisfactory, requires a consortium of all concerned powers in an international agreement to isolate the Iraq problem completely from everyone who could exploit it. This solution would internationalize its politics and its oil (another UN-sponsored “oil for food scam”?), suppress its social division under a crushing international military blanket and for as long as it takes a new stable order from within Iraq to take control. This is still a divide and rule concept. The stronger side emerges after five or ten years, Iraq grows strong enough to defend itself as a sovereign entity, and it remains one piece. Internal control comesin the same way: The strongest people or person emerges. Kosovo 9 years after the NATO intervention in the Yugoslav civil war remains the prominent example of this option. Bosnia, 13 years after NATO’s intervention, has stayed similarly occupied, policed, and more or less stable and suppressed under this formula.
While time and urgency preclude ideal option of creating a culture of an “Iraqi” national identity, what would such a formula look like? How could Iraq have turned out different if given a chance to develop an organic cultural norm since World War I? Exploring the possibilities hold the greatest potential for peace in the world of utopian-like choices. First, Iraq would have needed to govern itself independently, free from foreign manipulation. Communities in Iraq would have faced the same choice that diverse, but self-governing, societies like America had to face from 1776 to the of the American Civil War in 1865. The differences within and between local communities, and even the sectional differences of the opinions, cultures, nationalities, races, economics, AND religions in the US under the coercion of an empowered central government (Reconstruction, integration, Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts) would have to submit to living together peacefully or die in droves. After over a century of religious war, Europe invented international law, codified in the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, to lessen the probability of wars of genocide. Europe has reinvented its wheel twice since: 1815's Congress of Vienna and the 1955 Treaty of Rome. As in the US, Europe’s expectation of peace within became a cultural norm.
Iraq could have turned out better if rather than the manipulation of its politics, economics and social differences, the three strategic destinies faced by every nation (in other words, how geography, GDP potential, and demography determine history) could have coalesced and unified under the fourth strategic destiny that determines the future of every nation: Its imaginative belief, indeed hope, in its own intrinsic values and sense of self-worth. This destiny comes direct from the combination of a spirit; of fellowship, cooperation, self-acceptance, and commitment. It arises from a community, and people tied in firm bond to a sense of place. The destiny of “creative expectation” knows no limits, declines no challenge, shuns no effort, disrespects or dehumanizes none, and it forms the bond impenetrable by anything corporeal/material.
The high ideal of this fourth strategic destiny, if attained and maintained, may not force everyone to like everyone, but it does not kill its enemy, nor hate him or her. It deals firm with a sense of proportion and justice for the breaker of the laws of nature and nature’s god, but only in the honest court juried by the peers it creates and empowers to do the work of peace. The “creativity” of a society, of a nation guided by this destiny, does not destroy in the name of Rome, or for a king or kings man’s glory. It can build a tower to a nirvana or a heaven, or an escape from a conflict driven by greed and fear. (What have we lost in our own country by forgetting this basic teaching of the highest commandment? In this war dividing our country?)
This concept, even if Iraq had been allowed to pursue it on its own, and if the US had not forgotten this single purpose since the spirit of 1776, indeed possesses an ethereal/spiritual liberty. It relies on building and creation, first in sound ideas, then in the action of substance and form. It needs engineering details like a architectural plan. In politics, it needs a “master plan,” in other words a grand strategy. It does not derive within central system of “war socialism,” the New Deal, public/private cooperatives (fascism), a surge strategy, benchmarks, or a stimulus plan. The spirit and body of the “creative expectation” comes from everyone figuring it out and living it; thinking and then doing on their own.
Iraq never had the opportunity for its many different peoples to identify or create this expectation. No conquered people ever get the chance. And a people passive to believe others should solve their problems reduces the possibility of the imaginative hope in intrinsic value and self-worth overcoming evil that greed and fear do.
Iraq owns no choices for itself. The partition of Iraq and division among its neighbors, with Baghdad as an international city remain another viable option explored in another essay. The time to allow its own choices occurred in the 1920s. From here, the challenge faces the entire world. For more Iraqs become inevitable, as all recorded history has shown. The world needs to get lucky to avoid extermination due to some of the subtext discussed here. Let the idea of the strategic destinies fester in the mind. Humanity and all Americans need to ask themselves: Do we have the open-mind to see has become of our expectation? Do we have the willing-spirit to carry forward individual action before the options own us instead of us having choices?

Dialogue on Voting

Dear Dyalryg,

I hate to say this, after telling people for 13 years they need to vote
before voting doesn't matter anymore, but the neutral in me says, "It
really won't matter either way." I mean it. There will be no change for
the good no matter which of the "four" candidates remain (there will
actually be about 9-13 Presidential candidates on some state ballots,
and only one each will be a Democrat or a Republican).
Pessimistically, which I WON"T say in earnest, "We're damned if do or
don't at this point," is counter-productive. Optimistically, I wouldn't
waste my time helping/volunteering at level above County-level (judge,
sheriff, clerk, etc.) and focus most at your township, village, city,
special district (sewer, etc.). That is if people actually want "to do
something" positive and effective that would actually make a
difference.
If you plan on voting now,
voting for state-level, or Federal level is pointless. If you do vote
for assembly, State senate, US Congress or US Senate, Governor or
Attorney General, OR US President, I suggest a positive form of
aggressive civil disobedience: VOTE FOR ANYONE other than either a
Democrat AND a Republican--vote instead for the independent, right-wing, libertarian,
green--or yourself as a vote registered for none of the above as
"write-in"--or a friend as a write-in vote (Do people know they can do
that without campaigning?) That is the only thing I can suggest as
fulfilling civil duty to the republic, but at the same time not
endorsing or legitimizing the modern fiction of liberty,
Constitutional equality before the law, "social justice," the national interest,
and natural rights--All of them in the Declaration of Independence. No such things remain, Dyalyrg.
WHATEVER you do for president, choose to vote regardless, and perhaps
vote as I have suggested.
Most importantly, vote in all four designated
elections, spring primaries, and spring general
election, AND fall primary and general election in Nov. ("Grachius stood in dumbfounded belief when told this. He replied with incredulous anger,'There
are 4 chances to cast my vote? Here I thought there was only one vote
cast every four years!' Thus quoth Scipio Cepiacanus"). First of all, track down your
town/village clerk or county clerk (Balsam Lake in Polk County, and
Hudson in St. Croix--wherever your property is) and ENSURE you are
registered to vote AT LEAST ONE WEEK BEFORE YOU HAVE TO CAST A BALLOT.
If people do not vote regularly, or haven't voted in more than a year,
you can't just show up anymore. The system has made it harder for
average in Wisconsin and elswhere, the working people, to do cast a ballot. Hence, only people with dispensable money and
more spare time have the most advantages, opportunities and reasons to vote.
Please, this is only my suggestion. As you
could tell in my LTE, I'm tired of telling people what they NEED to do
anymore, as The Cepia Club first began saying it hard and heavy 13 years ago. Not many listened . No, it is really too late. The whole damn thing is going to
crash, and it must, for "creative destruction" to undergo its process
for a "revolutionary" change in the communities and culture. WE WILL
ALL SUFFER HARDSHIP, but we can make it better via unity, and love to
help one another. That is how liberty, freedom, peace and humanity has always survived in its short, short period of life in history. This is my final prediction of any consequence
anymore. But, young Dyalyrg, do what you will think best; and vote for who you think
best.

The process of significant change is beginning despite our fear and latent, late
attempt to be concerned. The first step is reluctantly undertaken by
many people other than fringe flakes like myself. That is the
"ending ignorance." In "ending apathy," the only thing in good
conscience I can recommend is this: Aggressive non-violent civil
disobedience. That was the way Thoreau wrote and practiced it against
injustices like slavery and the imperialist war against Mexico in
1845-48. Gandhi pretty much took it to the heights of success. Who
knows where it will take people from here. Despite the ridicule, their courage to do what was right and good to fight an evil wrong was justified by both history and the "spirit" of reflexion in passing time.

Thanks
for asking my opinion, Dyalyrg.

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Future of America in the “War for the Present Future”

The responsibility for the “War for the Present Future’ in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the globe have been abandoned BOTH by the Bush Administration AND CONGRESS. There have been clear statements and flagrant hints that resolution of matters of war and peace with Salafist-Islam, and trans-global terrorism and crime will be up to the next president after January 2009 and a future Congress.
The US political leaders–ALL OF THEM–have reached the end of strategy: No options for victory, except continued conflict indefinitely. This is the same sort of political mentality of Europe’s leaders in 1915, one year into four-year long First World War. The only solution then, and under current policy pursued by the US, is strategic, moral and material exhaustion. The US and its allies are in a war of further escalation (Pakistan now; Iran, perhaps; Saudi Arabia and Horn of Africa almost a certainty; God-forbid another Arab-Israeli War). It is a war of attrition between America’s limited resources and declining political will-power and the rabid ideas and unlimited manpower of radical Islamists terrorists.
Can the American people find any of this acceptable?
A fully-informed American public needs to accept that the US national political system has personal profit, class division, and the rewards to wealthy special interests governing this country. The politics of war and peace have been abused and manipulated by partisanship for profit toward these ends. America’s men and women have measured their fatal patriotism in war overseas against the abuses of privilege by a highly visible political class.
The fear of losing power and the greed for more wealth and power by the national political/ruling class has destroyed everything for which this country began and for which millions have fought and a million died: Rule of law under the Constitution, the guarantee of limited decentralized government based on family culture, personal liberty with free-minded opinions, and economic prosperity in a free-market.
The war and homeland security policies have been pursued by the US Government (both Republicans and Democrats equally) with only one option remaining for the long-term survival of the United States: The end of America’s Constitutional “fiction,” and its replacement with a new system of strong, all-powerful, all-policing government with a militarized foreign policy to fight the external enemies, and in the end the “internal” ones (those who dissent).
The American citizens hold the key to the future–with their vote, their instinct, their conscience, and their non-cooperation with a government not winning a war whose continuation serves the “real” political and wealth class. The fate and safety of the American people demand their own responsible, individual action. Government does not solve problems. It cannot guarantee God-given liberty and economic prosperity that people and their families give up willingly. It cannot enforce peace without a sense of justice. The people unaffected by it, who are manipulated into fear and greed on their own part, are ignorant of the war and how it can be fought and won decisivly. The government has failed to pursue, publicly, either its real interest, or actual “undisclosed” goals, in Iraq or elsewhere. Do people really understand the dimensions of how this “War of the Present Future” is between the God-given right of individual liberty and forces of dark anxiety and wicked lust–for more (just more of everything).
Those who are familiar with myself or The Cepia Club’s writings, publications or broadcasts know that our message has been consistent and accurate for 13 years–in the newspapers, on radio, and on the internet. Track back our record of public statements. (We have better than 90% accuracy on our analysis and predictions about oil, war in the Persian Gulf AND Central Asia, Islamists terrorism, economic collapse, and the suicide of individual liberty–all predictions made between June 1995 and BEFORE 9/11/2001). Our small, informed and active group has been just as right on events since 9/11. Can people afford to ignore our warnings now? Can people disregard our suggestions for the need for individuals to create a better, richer, more peaceful world of human fellowship with their own informed choice and personal action?

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