Iraq's Coming Civil War

Before we gloat about "victory" in Iraq, we might peel away the thin band-aid of peace and see what's festering underneath. The U.S. has trained three separate armies who, after we leave, will be at each other's throats for a decade.

We have financed, trained and armed Iraq's "official" army in Baghdad, who are led by Shi'a. Perhaps 150 to 200 thousand can be counted on to fight. Meanwhile, in Anbar province, we have bribed our former Sunni enemies to fight with us, arming and training an army of 100 thousand called the "Sons of Iraq." They form the backbone of the vaunted "Sunni Awakening." They served Al Qaeda once, and before that, Sadam Hussein.

Confrontations have already flared between these two armies of sectarian archenemies. Iraq's President Malaki decreed that the Sons of Iraq must not exist as an independent force. The question is not whether these armies will fight. The question is, will Americans get out in time to avoid the civil war.

If this situation isn't volatile enough, there are now armed confrontations between the Kurds and the Baghdad government in the North. Through the five years of this war, the U.S. has armed and financed the Kurds. In fact, our military support for them began years before the 2003 invasion, under the Clinton administration, when Northern Iraq became a separate "no-fly" zone. Try telling the Kurds that they must become part of a federated Iraqi government, centered in Baghdad.

What Americans have never understood is that the Kurds are absolutely committed to an independent Kurdistani state. And we have given them the military might to realize that dream.

Within two years, we will see an Iraqi civil war in comparison to which the former violence was a skirmish. This will be a three-way civil war, between Kurds in the North, Sunnis in the West, and Shi'a in the South. The war will be a direct result of our military meddling in a region of the world of whose cultural complexity the Bush administration was woefully ignorent. The war will compel intervention by Iran, Russia, Turkey, and eventually, Nato.

Americans who think our troubles in Iraq are almost over need to wake up. Iraq will be the center of history for a long time to come, as it was the birthplace of history in the ancient past.

There is one possibility for peace: Joe Biden's plan. Biden has suggested a confederation of semi-autonomous provinces, Sunni, Shi'a and Kurd. He won't admit it, but the ideal of confederation won't work. What he's really talking about is a tri-partite Iraq: three separate nations. Under this arrangement, the Sunni West would eventually be absorbed into Syria, the Shi'a East into Iran, and the Kurds would battle Turkey for independence in the North.

Admittedly, this arrangement might complicate oil contracts for Exxon-Mobil, and Americans would have to give up the fantasy of a U.S. colony in the Fertile Crescent. But with a little luck, and the blessings of Allah, the division of Iraq would avoid World War III.

By the way, if this solution sounds like a tragedy for "the nation" of Iraq, learn some history. There never was an Iraqi nation until the British invented it in 1922 for the sole purpose of fronting the Anglo-Persion Oil Company, now known as British Petroleum. In all the history of the Middle East, no nation existed there to unite Sunni, Shi'a and Kurd. They were, and will always remain, separate "Villayats", or tribal alliances.

General David Petraeus refuses to use terms like "victory" or even "winning" for the surge. As late as August, 2008, Petraeus stated that Iraq's relative calm is "fragile and reversible." If Bush and McCain didn't know what they were talking about, at least General Petraeus did.

One hopes that Barack Obama will listen to skilled military advisers who know the lessons of history, instead of political ideologues who still believe in the empire.

Nuremberg 2009

Cervantes wrote, “No history is bad if it is true.” Right-wing revisionists portray our occupation of Iraq as a noble victory. But we owe our next generation the truth about this war, even if the truth is bad.

After World War II, the Nuremberg Tribunals judged any war not waged in self-defense "a crime against humanity." "To initiate a war of aggression,” they declared, “is the supreme international crime… containing within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

Thus in 1947, our own military judges condemned what would become the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war.

The Bush-Cheney invasion killed tens of thousands more innocent civilians in Iraq than Islamic terrorists ever killed here. Yet Iraq neither participated in 9/11 nor threatened America. By Nuremberg standards, our invasion was clearly a war crime.

In 2003, Iraq was already defeated, surrounded, contained. Iraq was a buffer against Iranian power. But inflamed with vengeful pride and a stunning cultural ignorance that confused secular Iraq with Al Quaida, Bush-Cheney's Neocon cabal attacked what seemed an easy target. They envisioned an American petroleum colony in the heart of Arab lands. But their aggression bankrupted our treasury and decimated our military, misusing and abusing brave American troops.

History will condemn our civil cowardice if we the people ignore the accumulated evil of this war. Indicting Bush and Cheney for their crimes is our patriotic duty: not to vent liberal spite, but to prevent further wars of aggression in our name.

What's Wrong With Socialized Medicine?

I’ve noticed that people who whine about socialized medicine are perfectly content with a socialist military.

That’s right. The U.S. military is a complete socialist state within a state – taxpayer-funded and government-subsidized from health care to housing, education to transportation, right down to groceries at the post exchange.

I’m not criticizing our military. I think it’s the best in the world. I’m pointing out right-wing hypocrisy. If Americans practice socialism to kill people abroad, why not practice socialism to heal people at home?

Conservatives complain that nationalized health insurance would cost too much. We could surely afford it if we stopped funding imperial Third World adventures and brought our weary troops home. I question the moral sanity of those who spend a trillion dollars invading and occupying Iraq, but won’t spend a penny on nationalized health insurance for our own citizens.

Our gutless politicians, both Republican and Democrat, grovel before insurance companies, health-for-profit cartels and pharmaceutical lobbyists. Our president snuggles in the middle, speaking fluently out of both sides of his mouth.

I voted for change. I voted for single-payer public health insurance. I’m not afraid of Islam or a tiny fringe group of extremists. I’m afraid of doctors, insurance premiums and medical bills.

(Published in the Tacoma News Tribune, July 6, 2009)

Fourth of July

I don't know about your town, but in mine, this Fourth of July was a celebration of war, not freedom.

Despite the fire hazard in a time of drought, adults and children ignited fireworks in streets, over homes, on playing fields. Acrid smoke drifted through the windows until dawn. Gunpowder from spent canisters sickened the sky. Through the all-night bombing, my pets shivered under the bed. Deer and birds huddled in our few remaining green belts. I worried about vets with PTSD, trembling with flashbacks to Fallujah.

Why does America love explosions? President Obama just launched an invasion of poppy fields in Afghanistan, though I don't remember that campaign promise. President Bush used 9/11 as a pretext to bomb Iraq, where we killed tens of thousands more innocent civilians than terrorists ever killed in America. Which article of our Constitution provides for imperial invasions of the Third World, and drone attacks on impoverished villages?

We used to love the majesty of purple mountains, the tranquility of fruited plains. Now we love bombs bursting in air.

I question the morality of people who spend a trillion taxpayer dollars invading the Middle East, but not a penny to insure the public health of our own citizens. I question the sanity of people who fill our skies with spent fuel and gun powder, regarding clean air legislation as a threat to the American way of corporate profit.

We should ban this celebration of war. We should find a more peaceful way to honor our freedom. Fireworks threaten our health, homes, clean air, and natural environment. Fireworks are bad for the soul.

Lioness of Iran (Poem for Neda)

Persian Lioness shot through the heart,
fallen in the street, I bow down before you.
I honor the Lioness of Iran, whose voice is Neda.
Lioness wild who hungered in the forests of the patriarch,
hunted down by his guns on June 20, 2009,
the Summer Solstice of his brief and desperate power.
Your shining scarlet rivers drown the sun.
You sprinkle mosques, churches, temples
with the blood of the Lioness.
Wane the fleeting brilliance of minaret and steeple,
returning to imperishable patient Mother Night.
Theocracy drowns in lioness blood,
fascism drowns in lioness blood,
the streets of Tehran and Isfahan washed
in moon-blood of the Persian Lioness,
wisdom and darkness of your womb.
Boy-child saviors and their mojo empires
reign only by your grace, until you return
on the day of the Lioness, which is tomorrow
at dawn perhaps, or tonight at evening,
or even now, at the roaring of the blood,
the roaring that wakes us, roaring your name,
Neda, Lioness of Persia, toward whom every knee
shall bow, because it is the name of Justice:
not the name of Yahweh, Christ or Mohammad,
but the name of every girl abused whose blood
now roars un-shamed in your final heartbeat,
blood roaring of Neda, blood roaring of Inanna,
who descends and rises by dissent,
blood roaring of Third World serpents
shedding skins of oppression to emerge
as First World Goddesses with new and ancient powers
in green hands, wild hair, sweet nectar
of wombs and breasts, a balm of equality,
wine of compassion from the blood roaring vineyard
to silence the violence of Mullahs
and silence the supreme council of the Islamic Republic,
to silence the supreme council of Rome
and silence the supreme council of Wall Street,
to silence every council of patriarchal shame,
and silence them by your roaring blood,
blood of the feminine avatar at last,
blood of the Persian Lioness whose name
is Neda.

Reaganomic Kool Aid

For thirty years, Americans drank right-wing Kool Aid, dreaming that the invisible hand of the free market was the hand of God. It was the hand of greed.

Corporate America reveled in an orgy of deregulation. Assured by Alan Greenspan that free markets would regulate themselves, Congress and the SEC looked the other way.

Reaganomics busted unions, out-sourced jobs and de-funded public infrastructure, spawning obscene disparities between worker and executive pay.

Reaganomics was a shell game, redistributing wealth upward. One hand slashed taxes while the other stole real wages, pensions, and home equity.

Lobbyists wrote legislation. Wall Street made war for profit. Nesting in the White House, vulture corporations like Halliburton feasted on no-bid contracts and fat tax breaks. To pay the bill, we sold our children as debt-slaves to China.

Reaganomics dumbed down America's genius for balancing the public and private interests. Once, labor unions, progressive taxation and the GI Bill helped working folks afford homes, health care, higher education. A vital middle class was born.

Now, citizens choose between heating the house or paying the mortgage while their bankers get million dollar bonuses.

Reaganomics insulted our founding fathers, demonizing the government they conceived. We the people ARE government. Public regulation of corporate greed is not a leftist plot, but democracy's self-discipline. Federal oversight protects our commonwealth from excessive privilege bred by private riches.

Freedom requires more than a free market. Freedom requires a government. Let's be glad we have one again..


(Published in the Seattle Times, September 16, 2008; in the Olympian, Olympia WA, April 1, 2009, and in the Tacoma News Tribune, June 2, 2009)

The F Word

Some politicians declare that a loose-knit gang of foreign thugs, representing a tiny fraction of the world's Muslims, is a threat to Western civilization. They call this threat "Islamo-fascism."

Do Americans really understand the F word?

Defined by Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile in 1928, fascism is "corporatism… a merger of state and corporate power." In 1929, Benito Mussolini adopted the term from "Encyclopedia Italiana."

The term “Islamo-fascism”, coined by Neo-Conservatives to justify the Iraq war, is meaningless. Fascism is an economic system based on war-profiteering, while Islam prohibits profit-bearing interest.

Fascism is government by private corporations under the fog of war. War spreads, profits soar. Corporate oligarchs transfer the nation's wealth into their own pockets through military contracts financed with borrowed money. Corporate influence stifles representative government. Eventually, fascists cancel elections, regarding democracy as effeminate, unbecoming a warrior culture.

Fascists rule through fear, accumulating power in proportion to the lies they spread in their corporate-owned media. When people fear enough to forfeit essential constitutional rights, like habeas corpus and freedom of speech, fascists win.

Fascists use faith to promote militarism, as Hitler did through the Nazi Ministry of Church Affairs. Fascist faith requires enemies, demonizing foreign religions. War becomes sacred: a blood-sacrifice for the wealth of the nation. The wealthy, however, seldom see combat.

If you're willing to surrender your civil liberties for national security, you're planting seeds of fascism. Be vigilant, America. Read your Constitution every day, just as you read your Koran, or your Bible.

(First published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

DEAR PRESIDENT OBAMA,

WHEN WILL YOU STAND UP AND SPEAK OUT IN SUPPORT OF THE DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT IN IRAN?

THIS IS NOT A TIME FOR MODERATION, OR SPEAKING SWEETLY OUT OF BOTH SIDES OF YOUR MOUTH. THIS IS A TIME TO TIP THE BALANCE WITH THE WEIGHT OF YOUR MORAL VOICE, TO HELP THE HEROIC YOUTH OF IRAN CHOOSE THEIR DESTINY OF FREEDOM.

AT THIS CRITICAL MOMENT, THESE BRAVE YOUTH COULD DO MORE TO TRANSFORM THE MIDDLE EAST FROM WITHIN, THAN A TRILLION DOLLARS OF AMERICAN BOMBS EVER DID FROM OUTSIDE.

WE DO NOT ASK YOU TO DROP ONE MORE BOMB, OR LAUNCH ONE MORE MILITARY INTERVENTION. WE SIMPLY ASK FOR THE INESTIMABLE MORAL FORCE OF YOUR VOICE IN THIS HOUR OF CONSCIOUS AWAKENING.

STAND UP, MR. PRESIDENT, AND SPEAK OUT.

How Wall Street Invaded Iraq

A new GAO report exposes the rebuilding of Iraq as "a $100 billion blunder", according to the NY Times.

When Dwight Eisenhower warned us about "the unwarranted influence of the military industrial complex," we never knew that "military industrial" would become a fashion statement.

His Excellency, pictured above, was Bush's imperial tribune to our newest petroleum colony. Before that, he was Bush's prep-school room-mate. A mythic monster for the 21st Century, his upper half is a corporation, his lower half a Blackwater storm-trooper. His head is in Wall Street, his boots on the ground in Iraq. Dante might have invented this image for his Inferno, or John of Patmos for a beast of the apocalypse.

His Excellency's imperial mission? To cobble together a puppet government in Iraq designed to serve Exxon. In 2003, he tried to appoint government officials by fiat, creating his own fiefdom. But when a hundred thousand Shi'a Muslims marched in the streets soon after the U.S. invasion, His Excellency let them have an "election," supervised by an army of invaders. Many intelligent Iraqis never bought into this notion of police state democracy, but Americans did, since we were the police.

His Excellency rounded up clan chieftains who had no experience with democratic institutions, and put their names on a ballot liberally peppered with other names: ex-patriot arms dealers, black marketeers, shifty middle-men who'd worked either for our oil companies or the CIA. The ballot was indecipherable, which hardly mattered since many voters couldn't read anyway. After the purple-thumbed innocence of election day, the votes were divvied-up in back rooms, where there were no impartial international observers: the kind we send to monitor elections in other Third World countries.

His Excellency then proceeded not to rebuild Iraq, but to ruin it. He gave no-bid contracts to vulture corporations like Haliburton, operating through off-shore subsidiaries so they never had to pay any taxes. Republicans in Congress refused to exercise oversight on this blatant war profiteering. In contrast to the Truman Commission of WWII, Bush Ne0-Cons disdained all public regulation of private greed.

Under His Excellency, the occupation of Iraq was a scam. Here's how it worked: The Bush administration borrowed billions from China, selling our middle class children as debt slaves to communists. Through no-bid contracts, this money kicked back into the pockets of His Excellency's cronies on Wall Street. Nearly $50 billion dollars disappeared.

What were these corporations paid for? Bullets and bombs of course; inferior and often dated food for our troops; absurdly inflated prices for port-a-potties and toilet paper; buildings that leaked even before they were finished, which many of them never were; and plenty of inferior military armor. The real cost of this war, including veterans' medical care, will be in the trillions. As of March 2008, a congressional study estimated the war costs over two billion dollars a week.

The Bush administration consistently lacked the courage to include war costs in the national budget. Every six months, His Excellency slipped the corporate receipts to Congressional patsies as "emergency appropriations." When American citizens woke up in the morning, they never knew they were $60 billion deeper in debt.

While unregulated corporations raped Iraq, private storm troopers protected them. Yet Blackwater Securities, inc. will never be prosecuted for war crimes. The day before he left the country, His Excellency gave one last gift to the Iraqi people: a rider in the new constitution prohibiting the prosecution of foreign corporations for any crime. Consequently, Iraqis had no legal recourse for addressing shoddy construction, graft, over-billing, or the murders committed by corporate mercenaries.

His Excellency sports designer-jackboots, but the real boots on the ground are the valiant men and women of our military. They don't wear neckties and Oxford-cloth shirts. Neither do they sip Cabernet on Wall Street. They drink the bloody dregs of war, and suffer lifelong nightmares in an ever-widening fracture that shatters the frail network of America's families. His Excellency will never know these families, never share a meal with them, never visit their soldier-children in mental hospitals, never support them with a single penny of his private wealth. He and his country club cronies are the first generation in American history to send our youth into combat without paying a war tax.

James Madison wrote: ""The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." U.S. citizens, I implore you: never, ever, re-elect the Republican oligarchy. If you do, the rape of Iraq will merely be a trial-run for what they do to America.

(Written October 17, 2006. Though this piece was written two years ago, it's a bit more interesting in the light of Wall Street's current $700 billion make-over.)

Waterboarding Jesus

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- "The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey." (5/1/09)

How sad. In 2009, Americans debate the virtue of a medieval torture technique invented by the Church to wring confessions out of heretics. Is this moral clarity?

When we torture our enemies, it's "enhanced interrogation." When our enemies torture us, it's torture. I guess our torture chambers are washed in The Precious Blood.

Ironic isn’t it? Jesus too was tortured as a suspected terrorist on a wooden board by an army of occupation whose empire invaded his tiny country to bring "Western values" to dark-skinned Oriental barbarians.

Is water-boarding torture? Yes, according to Geneva Conventions. But according to Texas Senator Kit Bond, in an NPR interview on 12/12/07, water-boarding is just "like swimming backstroke." No wonder it doesn't work. But then again, how would he know? Rich white Republicans aren’t tortured all that much.

Am I getting this? People who call the U.S. a Christian nation, a moral example for the world, defend torture?

Water-boarding is uncivilized, inhuman, and illegal. Those who sanctioned torture, from Gonzales and Rumsfeld right up to Cheney and Bush, should be indicted for their crime so that future generations will know the truth.

THAT'S moral clarity.

New American Populism

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, that already challenge our government to a trial by strength.”

Ralph Nader?

No, Thomas Jefferson.

The new political fault-line is not a line between Republicans and Democrats, but between oligarchs and populists. In the words of John Edwards, who despite his personal faults had a great vision: "This is an epic struggle for the future of America. Corporate greed and the very powerful use their money to control Washington, and this corrupting influence is destroying the middle class."

The real threat to our nation is not from foreign powers, but from a home-grown corporate elite that eschews public good for private privilege. Perched on a paper tower, the rich get richer while national infrastructure crumbles. They revere the mysterious hand of the free market as the hand of God, but they deny the truth: only government keeps free markets free.

Free markets, in themselves, are neither good nor evil. But unregulated, they tend toward oligarchy, breeding mega-corporations that are cancer cells in the body politic. They cannibalize competition and cheat consumers to gorge their stockholders. They metastasize in the fog of war. No-bid contracts for Halliburton? That’s not free enterprise: it’s postindustrial feudalism.

What is the agenda of these corporate oligarchs? (1) Abolish labor unions, workers’ pensions and social security; (2) demonize all public regulation as socialism, including environmental protection laws; (3) use foreign labor to drive real wages down; (4) let lobbyists write legislation; (5) use the media cartel to marginalize progressive voices; and (6) stimulate industry with perpetual war.

Republicans ruined our economy with the false promises of trickle-down economics. The Clintons made things worse with NAFTA. Neither Republicans nor Clinton Democrats will drive the whores of corporate Babylon from our government. But some day, a new Populist Party will. S0me day, when we find a leader who speaks truth to power.

First published in the Olympian, Olympia WA, February 22, '08)

Paying For Your Yellow Ribbon

Americans have been asking the wrong questions about the Iraq War. Numbers dead? Enemy’s strength? Date for withdrawal? But the real question is: Who’s making money?

This war was a Wall Street scam that had nothing to do with terrorism. In World War II, the Truman Commission investigated war profiteering. In this war, Congress provided no such oversight. Iraq costs $2 billion a week, with billion unaccounted-for.

There are two ways to fund a trillion dollar invasion. Put your money where your patriotic mouth is and pay a hefty war tax, or charge it. Bush charged it on a Bank of Beijing credit card. His Wall Street cronies pocketed the cash and cursed our grandchildren with the debt. When they ask, "Why does daddy owe half his salary to foreigners? Why do communists own the mortgage on mommy's house?" - will we tell them the truth? We were the first generation in American history to send our soldiers into combat without paying a war tax.

More than 4,000 American soldiers have poured their blood in the sand so that Wall Street could gorge itself. Vulture corporations like Halliburton, nesting in the White House, reaped record profits through no-bid contracts. Halliburton dividends tripled over four years, inspiring Dick Cheney to call this war "a successful endeavor."

But patriots like Cheney won't forfeit one penny of their precious tax cuts to help our hurting military families. Instead, they paste yellow ribbons on their SUV's, and sell our grandchildren as debt slaves to China. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

After six brutal years of occupation, killing tens of thousands more innocent civilians in Iraq than terrorists ever killed here, America has squandered its moral, military and financial might to conquer a small Third World country that was already impoverished, defeated and contained when we invaded it.

Those who claim victory in Iraq need to explain exactly what it is we won.

(First published in the Tacoma News Tribune)

Party of Fear

President Obama’s speech to the Muslim world impressed the international community, and most Americans. We were relieved to see a mature president whose foreign policy is motivated by a robust desire for reconciliation and partnership.

What's sad is the reaction of the Republican right. Romney called the President’s effort an apology trip. Limbaugh accused him of siding with Al Quaida. Oklahoma Senator Inhofe called the President un-American.

These Republicans pretend to be tough, but what really comes through is their FEAR.

They are scared of dialog, scared of empathy, even scared of government. They're scared of Latin women, gay men, and poor people. They're scared of Muslims, Mexicans, Asians and Palestinians. They're scared of complexity, ambiguity, and diversity. And they’re really scared of President Obama.

It's no coincidence that most of them are white, male Christian heterosexuals, who have dominated all the key American institutions for three centuries. They are scared of losing control.

(Published in the Seattle Times, Monday, June 6, 2009)

Are 'They' Created Equal?

Third World people deserve an equal opportunity to the pie: especially since most of the pie is grown, harvested, manufactured and packed by their hands.

At this time in history, Americans need to ask themselves a fundamental question: Do we really believe the words of our own Declaration of Independence? Do we really believe that all are created equal? If so, then we believe that every human person has an equal right to life, liberty, and a piece of the pie.

A piece of the pie?

Of course that should read, the pursuit of happiness. Jefferson was a Virginia gentleman who could afford to replace bread and butter with Aristotle. He borrowed the notion of three human rights from philosopher John Locke - who had written the constitutions of several American colonies. For Locke, however, the inalienable rights were life, liberty and the acquisition of property: which is to say, a piece of the pie. Jefferson the idealist changed the third right to happiness. But let's make no mistake: happiness means nothing without a piece of the pie, or an equal opportunity to slice it.

Let's focus the question more deeply: Do we believe that Third World people are equal to us? If we believe in the words of our founding documents, then we must believe that Third World people deserve an equal opportunity to the pie: especially since most of the pie is grown, harvested, manufactured and packed by their hands.

If we had the courage to sit down at the table with populist leaders instead of promoting the politics of privilege, communication would temper their distrust. Yes, that even includes Al Queda, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Our enemies would not be so hell-bent on smashing our pie if we shared it with them. But sharing cuts into corporate profits.

Sharing our pie, and our values, with the Third World does not mean redistribution of wealth through socialism. It is a demand to abolish NAFTA and re-negotiate international trade, regulating corporate power in Third World economies. Let a significant portion of profits return to the nation where corporations manufacture their products. Ensure that every foreign citizen manufacturing U.S. products has a guaranteed minimum wage and health care, funded by those corporate profits. Such legislation must prevent this corporate levy from winding up in the pockets of an elite oligarchy. The tax must flow to public programs employing and empowering the poor.

In fact, these equitable international levies would skim no more off corporate profits than are already grafted by corruption and cronyism. Just look at the missing billions of U.S. dollars in the unregulated free-market boondoggle of Iraq!

Let us honor America's founding values by replacing corporate feudalism with responsible capitalism. Responsible capitalism balances the good of private wealth with the good of commonwealth, or public infrastructure. On a global scale, we need the capitalist vision of Teddy Roosevelt, not Ronald Reagan and the robber barons.

Unless our nation puts its money where it's mouth is, in asserting human equality, the Right Wing's gospel of democracy is but tinkling brass. Republicans can sound off all they want about American values, but our foreign policy will continue to shoot itself in the foot until we decide which value is more American: people or profits?

Shooting ourselves in the foot is a callous phrase, because the bullet often ricochets with tragic consequences in the Third World. The assassination of reformers from Anwar Sadat to Benazir Bhutto have as much to do with our failed corporatism as failed states like Egypt and Pakistan. We can no longer afford to be governed by troglodytes who believe that the untaxed unregulated profits of the few will somehow trickle down to the benefit of all.

We claim to support democracy with one hand, while our other hand strokes a global oligarchy whose only interest is exploiting Third World labor. Democracy demands connection with a nation's people, but corporatism only seeks connection with the ruling-class: a dictator, a king, and a few elite families to franchise. The Bin Laden family, under the Saudi monarchy, is a perfect example. Close friends of the Bush clan, they've been a lucrative franchise for Pepsi, Mercedes Benz and Exxon-Mobil. Why should they share any of their profits with the Saudi people?

As for free trade, the rich produce weapons to place in the hands of the poor, while the poor produce food to place in the hands of the rich. The rich get fat, and the poor get shot.

If we believe in democracy for the Middle East, why do we sell mass killing technology to fascist monarchies and police states like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordon? In 1953, why did the U.S. overthrow a democratically elected president in Iran, installing an imperial dictator, the Shah? In 1965, why did the CIA overthrow a new democracy in the world's largest Islamic nation, Indonesia, installing the fascist Sukarno dynasty? Even today, the corporate Republican Party regards it as an unpardonable sin to sit down and talk to popular Arab movements, because working with the rich and the few is far more cost-effective. They want to use persons as means to the end of profit, rather than using profit as a means to the end of persons.

The policies of George Bush only disenfranchised the majority, driving more and more of them into the arms of extremists. This polarization between rich and poor inevitably produces the spark of violence, and it is happening throughout the Third World. Let's hope that, with more enlightened American leadership, we can avoid the same violent polarization of rich and poor right here in our own streets!

When Will America Stop Losing?

Some say we are defending ourselves by invading Iraq and Afghanistan. But the age of empire is over. If we can only defend America by invading and occupying other nations, there is something essentially virulent about our way of life.

Morally, this "war on terror" ended before it began. In the 1980’s, the CIA created a Frankenstein when it trained Afghanistan’s Muhajadeem freedom fighters. They morphed into Al Quaida. Now we call them terrorists. They took the orphans created by our bombs to radical Islamic Madrasa's in Pakistan, and raised them to become the Taliban. The Taliban are the offspring of U.S. imperial foreign policy.

We lost the moral high ground as soon as we invaded Iraq. We already had Iraq defeated and contained, and Iraq was no threat to us. Our invasion was therefor a war of aggression, not defense. The invasion was a war crime by all international standards, including our own Nuremberg tribunals.

We lost this war by killing tens of thousands more innocent civilians in Iraq than Islamic terrorists ever killed here. By Christianity's Just War Theory, our response to 9/11 was disproportionate and therefor immoral. We lost the war again at Abu Grahab prison. And we continue to lose it with every bomb we drop on an Afghan or Pakistani village, maiming and murdering civilians.

Most tragically, we lost this war by abusing our own soldiers. We forced them into multiple tours of combat. To to enjoy our Bush tax cuts, we ignored the pain of military families. And we re-elected an imperial president in 2004.

Out of loss, may we find wisdom. The way to peace is partnership, not dominion. Do we have the courage to abandon the arrogance of empire? Let us begin by abolishing the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war, which by any other name is mass murder.