Secrecy,Secrecy,
security,
+ freedom
As the Lunar New Year dawns, Amerika Incorporated gives every evidence of being on the verge of plunging head-long into an absolutely unnecessary, unwanted, and complicated military adventure in Iraq. This, despite a gathering tidal wave of world opinion that to do so would simply further illustrate the fact that the United States is indeed the dangerously reckless "imperialist warmonger" that other nations have traditionally accused it of being in past decades.
First of all, any such unilateral action undertaken by the United States can only be about energy resources, and what is oil but the most important energy resource in the world today? In fact every major conflict of the 20th century has been instigated about or initiated over access to energy sources (read: oil). Simply put, without oil, an all-consuming and unendingly voracious materialist economy like that of the United States would grind quickly to a complete halt. The fact that the present administration maintains strong corporate alliances, has solid proprietary associations with the Texas energy (oil) cartels, and has as its chief spokesman (George Dubya) a conservative God-fearing Christian who regards Israel with biblically legitimised fervor, all but guarantees perpetuation of the present status quo perception of Israelis as the good guys and all Arabs as the savage 'bad guys' (who due to a fluke of fate, just happened to end up with MOST of the modern world's principal energy source). [The fact that ethnic profiling with respect to those of Arab ancestry is a current major adjunct of the Administration's anti-terrorist campaign strongly evidences this sweeping bias against all Arabs, without qualification.]
These circumstances constitute a consequential American tragedy in the making, but the collateral effort that the present administration is making to roll back environmental protection, further unleash the hounds of American free-market capitalism on a skeptical world, inject grotesque quantities of fundamental Christian faith into American governmental affairs, and finally....lead this nation into a completely unnecessary war (at a time when we should be concentrating principally on our pressing internal economic concerns) to me verges on the very razor-thin edge of grossly disordered reasoning.
The good news is that despite the fact that Bush et al has been steadily deploying thousands of US troops, several naval battle groups, and a large number of tactical Air Force units to positions within easy striking distance of Iraq, a mounting groundswell of worldwide resistance to US intervention has been growing. France and Germany, two of our formerly staunch NATO allies have both outspokenly gone on record as opposing a new US attack against Iraq. Turkey, a key member of the previous 'Gulf War' coalition (and understandably reticent to encumber itself with unnecessary military deficits consequent to a new and unwished-for war) has also made it clear that it wants to have nothing to do with an attack on Iraq (a fellow Islamic nation). And the UN itself maintains strong insistence that, despite typical Iraqi malingering and questionable willingness to fully comply with UN mandated inspections, it has yet uncovered any evidence of that great hoard of WoMD that US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld claims is still out there (hiding under an outhouse at one of Saddam's desert palaces, perhaps?).
Very recently, several respected foreign policy analysts have concluded that all appearances demonstrate that the Bush administration has essentially already committed itself to a war with Iraq, regardless of world opinion and with near total disregard for the UN's conclusions. It hardly takes a graduate degree in economics from Cambridge to arrive at this conclusion, yet this fact is quite chilling in its deeper insinuations as to where American 'democracy' appears to be heading. Orwellian implications aside, our vaunted American democracy shows very disturbing signs of becoming an oppressive oligarchy of the wealthy (wherein corporate profit interests of the powerful elite are valued far above individual freedoms and rights of the common masses).
Regardless of what one thinks about Public Broadcasting (PBI) in the United States, and no matter whether it indeed reflects (as some have criticised) a slanted 'aging white liberal' perspective, PBI does present thought-provoking, incisive programming from time to time. One very recent documentary on the popular series NOVA dealt with the spectacular early 50s Communist witch-hunting paranoia that swept America ('Cold War Fever'), following the end of the Second World War. Specifically, this program focused on US atomic weapons program secrets that were successfully obtained by Soviet KGB agents and their operatives, resulting in accelerated development of the Soviet atomic bomb. This documentary detailed the process by which several key US physicists, while working within the highly confidential Los Alamos facility in New Mexico (which is what the Manhattan Project morphed into), literally gave away these secrets to the KGB on their own initiative (i.e. acting on personal conviction), and went on to detail how US intelligence analysts had partially 'broken' an unbreakable Soviet diplomatic code to learn of this deception.
The thesis of this NOVA program, portrayed against the background of the very public 'show' trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for espionage (who were blamed for betrayal of the nuclear secrets that prematurely gave the atomic bomb to the Soviets), was that the United States' obsessive regard for keeping American intelligence knowledge (i.e. the US's success in partially breaking the Soviet code) of the Los Alamos 'leak' secure from Soviet awareness was directly responsible for the travesty of justice that found relatively 'minor players' such as the Rosenbergs guilty of spying, whilst keeping the REAL culprits (the two US atomic physicists who actually gave the Soviets their secrets) safely protected from public (Congressional) knowledge for more than 50 years after the events occurred!
The two American physicists who actually betrayed the United States' nuclear secrets not only were never identified publicly (until just recently), they both later successfully immigrated to England where they continued to lead respectable professional lives in their occupational pursuits, until the time of their natural deaths. The point was made in the NOVA documentary that had the two US atomic physicists' integral complicity in the atomic secrets betrayal been made known in Congressional hearings of that era, the Rosenbergs would have not been found guilty of espionage severe enough to warrant their execution. The point is clear and succinct, as NOVA stated it in this most interesting documentary: extreme secrecy, prompted by pervasive fear (of compromising intelligence information), and productive of consequent drastic curtailment of existing civil liberties, has highly dangerous consequences when used as an instrument of internal policy within a true democracy.
This point has frightening importance in its impact on our present circumstances, as the Bush administration strives to foster an arch 'protectionist' attitude of secrecy, not only toward the American people themselves, but towards the very civilian leaders that we have elected as our appointed representatives in Congress. Symptoms of this highly dangerous policy have already surfaced in the press in recent months, after senior members of Congress made public statements complaining that "...the White House is being 'extremely, provocatively disingenuous and devious about keeping Congress advised of its activities, intelligence data, and intentions" (esp. with regard to the present effort to attack Iraq).
Lamentably, all of this worrisome concern probably doesn't phase the average American (who is undoubtedly more concerned with the outcome of the American football Superbowl than in dangerous subtleties of American political malfeasance that can directly affect common freedoms), but it scares the living hell out of me (and I hope many others)!
In further referencing the NOVA program: it was pointed out that in contrast to this shameful series of events concerning American 'secret knowledge' of Russia's atomic secrets espionage that were deliberately never brought to light , the VERY public and prominent Congressional House Un-American Affairs Committee (HUAC) investigations, chaired by Red baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy, succeeded in damaging, defaming, and ruining the lives of several thousand innocent American citizens who were vicariously accused of being 'dangerous Communists'. Most Americans do not know that out of all those thousands who came under the scathing scrutiny of HUAC, only a small handful were ever shown to have actually warranted that scrutiny. The vast majority of those accused by HUAC's invariably unsubstantiated accusations were no more than innocent bystanders, many of whom were simply idealists interested in social philosophy concerns and exploring human political-economic reform. In many cases, the accusations levied by HUAC were entirely and completely based on hearsay evidence, with no factual substantiation whatsoever. This little-acknowledged 'truth' did nothing to exonerate them as innocent of the scandalous insinuations and harmful allegations that subsequently destroyed their personal lives and reputations from that moment forth.
A truly democratic society, such as the United States was originally created to foster and sustain, has no room for secret tribunals any more than it has for unsubstantiated accusations, unwarranted aspersions, unsupported accusations, vague aspersions, or baseless insinuations. These are all established tenets of the very sort of tyrannical and socially repressive political regimes the US has traditionally made much noise about being opposed to. And yet after the events of September 11th, we have seen an increasingly disturbing effort to impose these very same repressive sanctions on American citizens (not just on foreign nationals residing in the USA) by our erstwhile 'leaders', who justify their actions by citing vague 'threats to American Democracy". Sadly, none of our illustrious leaders have the barest sense of humorous irony, or they would reflect on this fact (if only for the briefest of moments) before plunging on with their agenda of domestic social constraints in the name of American freedom!
Meanwhile, all that having been said, we are back to our present vantage on the edge of a vast and dire chasm of uncertainty. While the genuine threat to American freedom (shadowy, illusive, and hard to define terrorists of the Al Queda variety) goes on, growing in the shady periphery of world affairs and waiting for further opportunities to cripple the "Godless Great Satan"; while the American economy (and many others around the world closely linked to it) continues to flounder in doubt and uncertainty, while North Korea's politically unstable (hence especially dangerous) leader Kim Il Jung continues to shake his nuclear rattle, and while the United States persists in its delusion that an 'ever-expanding economy based on unlimited sustainable growth' is the only practical philosophy to maintain, the Bush Administration in its infinite wisdom (about on par with Bozo the Clown's, actually) continues to prepare for its highly personalised (and politically motivated) battle with Saddam Hussein.
Any intelligently focused assessment of the present truly crucial concerns America (and the rest of the world) faces at present would quickly highlight the bizarre nature of this compulsive obsession on the part of Bush and his wealthy Republican cronies (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Ashcroft, and the US military-industrial / oil complex). It would furthermore underscore the basic fact that a unilateral declaration of war against Iraq by the USA would be catastrophic in every sense (politically, economically, socially, and philosophically). The economic damage that a war with Iraq would bring to an already struggling American economy would merely be the most visible immediate result; the less obvious (but even more dangerous) damage would slowly but steadily accumulate like fallout after a nuclear explosion.
Recent analysis suggests that one reason (aside from gross stupidity and lack of intelligent awareness, which in the USA is seemingly indigenous) opinion polls still show so much support the Bush Administration's manic obsession with Iraq's Saddam Hussein is that the average American (further define that as anyone over the age of 40) gets his entire political and social awareness from popular media news broadcasts (read: American major network programs). These nightly presentations are cobbled together from carefully filtered and deliberately slanted information released by the White House and our military, to suit their best interests. The fact that US media must highlight the sensational and pander to the cheap underside of American 'dumbness' to maintain and sustain viewer market-share further guarantees that no one major player within the national network news venues will risk taking a stance that could be perceived as being less than readily popular among conservative Americans (read: those who have money and use it to achieve political ends). Younger voices of protest correspondingly matter little (to political bean-counters), since younger people (who are full of idealism and rebelliousness) have little money (and hence little power), in this line of reasoning (but then, they also rarely, if ever, obtain their political & economic awareness from the conventional mainstream media, either).
One final point to consider: In recent decades, due to growing defense budget cutbacks and decreasing defense appropriations, the US military has had to come up with increasingly clever ways of maintaining US 'defense preparedness' with far less money. Chief among these 'cute' little contingent strategies, and a major detour around the extant fiscal constraints, has been the policy of delegating important mission responsibilities (particularly in the case of the US Air Force) to the various state National Guard and Reserve units. While in theory these units may only legitimately be called up to active duty in times of national emergency, in fact the Pentagon has been overtly relying on them more and more to carry out what were formerly regular responsibilities of the nation's standing active duty armed forces. Naturally, it is easier to call up Guard and Reserve units to active duty in times when war threatens or national defense issues are in acute focus. Thus, there is every reason in the world to perpetually contrive or foster circumstances in which "national security" interests appear to be threatened, so that these reserve forces can be called up and used as active duty forces. Aside from the duplicitous nature of this Pentagon ploy, a disproportionate number of our Reserve and National Guard members are professionally employed in the civilian sector as police and firefighters (including HAZMAT emergency responders); thus, at a time when we may well need these civil emergency personnel to respond to internal domestic threat (from an Al Queda or similar terrorist group), they are being called up en masse, as Guard and Reservists to be sent to prepare for an attack on Iraq! A number of civic municipalities have already complained that their police and firefighting personnel are being decimated in this manner as the US prepares for Bush's idiotic war on Saddam Hussein, thus leaving them with critical staffing shortages. What then, one has to ask, would happen if a terrorist group elected to release a highly contagious bio-agent such as Variola (Smallpox) in a community where the principal emergency responders had all been sent to cool their heels in Kuwait (or some similar far-off staging base for an Iraqi attack). The words CHAOS, PANIC, DISASTER, and CATASTROPHE all swim into one's thoughts with little prompting!
I can say that I am somewhat slightly encouraged by a few courageous individuals in positions of authority and power in the USA who have enough personal courage of their convictions to stand up against the administration's talking heads (viz. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Ashcroft, et al) and actually state that Emperor Dubya is NOT wearing new clothes at all, but is rather cloaking his intensely senseless utterances behind sheer intellectual nudity! Perhaps peace still has a chance, after all, despite the best efforts of our esteemed 'Chickenhawk' national leaders to drown our reflective awarenesses in all that chicken excrement they seem to enjoy bathing in so frequently......
A favorite quote of mine appears to be all the more relevant, in view of our national obsession with attacking Iraq, attributed originally to Roman Senator Publilius Syrus: ARMA SUNT PARVI PRETII NISI CONSTILIIUM EST IN PATRIA! ("Arms are of small value if there is no wisdom in this country.")
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Best wishes for
the Year of the Black
Sheep! The Year of the Sheep (or Ram), according
to Chinese astrology, portends peacefulness, tranquillity, and a slowing of
pace. Focus is centered on domestic life. In at least one reference I have
checked, the following suggests what the year should have in store for us:
"This is a period of reconciliation, a time for healing rifts and for
diplomatic moves. The signing of treaties, trade agreements, and foreign policy
pacts finds favor. Commercially, it is inadvisable to launch new products or
strike out in different directions, but a time in which to reaffirm contacts,
secure links with existing markets, and bring past efforts to fruition.
Awareness about (the importance of) ecology and the needs of humanity will be
raised."
* Wow! Considering that we presently appear to
be headed hell bent for war with Iraq, it will be interesting to see
what the year actually produces, eh?
Sorry if this pontificating seems to run at cross purposes with the spirit of renewal, hope, fortune, and good luck that custom dictates must predominate in the Lunar New Year, according to honored traditional practice. However, since Chicken Little has been sighted on several occasions recently, running about crying "The sky is falling", perhaps it would be provident to pay more attention to the fact that "Chicken Littles" and "Chickenhawks" are two entirely different breeds of yard-bird, eh?........one (the former) is well worth heeding, while the other (latter) has little to offer us beyond more of the same old tired chicken-crap that the White House has been sprinkling around so liberally these days.
Cheers, C2.....February 2003
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* (Excerpted from "The Complete Book of Chinese Horoscopes", by Lori Reid, ISBN 0-7607-0482-1, Barnes & Noble Books, 1997.
