May 2, 2006
The Return of
Fratricide
I have just recently returned from a far-longer-than-expected trip to the site of Ali bin Qoresh's ill-advised attempt to reconstruct the tower of Babel, as described in some ancient manuscripts and tablets, which I helped in translating. We worked in deep western Iraq on the project (which took over seven years of a three-month schedule; project managers the world over will sympathize), only to discover that, as the reconstruction reached a certain height, communications problems among the workers increased, to the point that the project ground to a halt. Since we were so isolated, it was hard to get replacement workers, and after two more tries, the project had to be abandoned, to the despair of archeological reconstructionists the world over.
During that time, we had almost no contact with the outside world. Ali brought a satellite dish along, but in his passion for authenticity, he insisted in aligning it to north as it was 7200 years ago. All we ever received was fuzz. That left radio. The batteries gave out after six months, and besides, my Arabic is so poor that I never heard anything intelligible.
Apart from the project, there was very little to do besides survey the scenery. I remember, one day in early 2002, we saw a huge convoy of trucks heading west towards the Syrian border. Ali shrugged as he looked and then handed me the field glasses. The only thing I could make out was writing on the side of each truck that said "W. M. D." I never found out what that meant—probably the name of the moving company. It went on for a couple of days.
Then, a few weeks later, huge numbers of aircraft flew east over us. Now and then we heard the sounds of distant concussions. Never knew what that was about, either. The Iraqis are always making a fuss about something.
So, after the project melted down, I flew home, ignorant of how much had happened in the world. But I quickly noticed some of the changes that occurred in my absence, e.g., alterations in the hemlines, bylines, and skyline of New York; yet another war against a concept (see Homily, below); two presidential candidates so bogus and flimsy that they could not even beat George W. Bush; gravitas (see Tract, below); pink money (see Gradual, below); Senatorette Hillary Rodman Cuckolda; a swift succession of record lows in taste on TV; the rich getting richer—the poor getting richer; all my favorite Dixieland groups down the drain; a tsunami of lies (see Communion, below); and a flood of the sort of news that is self-satirizing (see Homily, FRATRICIDE, v3#5). The added bonus is that the newspapers are unchanged (my new budgies will be thrilled!).
So, FRATRICIDE is back, for the time being at least. My office staff has shrunk woefully; the programmers all quit (you will notice that the Y2K problems are all gone). But we will muddle through, bringing you all the stuff you love to hate.
Peace! (Of course, no real chance of that.)
The truth... must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies.
... Winston S. Churchill
Youth today must be strong, unafraid, and a better taxpayer than its father.
... Harry V. Wade
The other day, I received in change one of the new ten-dollar bills. I almost handed it back but refrained because I was at a bank. I figured they knew what a ten-dollar bill was supposed to look like. Evidently, until that moment, I did not.
It's PINK!!! Can you imagine? Pink money? This is outrageous. First of all, money in colors other than black and green is for furriners, Canadians and the like. Secondly, pink money is only for effete European countries like France and Monaco, and for little countries like Holland that don't know any better.
Pink money is sissy money! This cannot be proper money for Americans. What happens, now, to our favorite phrases—"greenback," "paint me green," and "You look like a million dollars—all green and wrinkled"? It's insulting to any real American.
I am told that the purpose of all this slick stuff with the currency is the confounding of the counterfeiters. The idea is to employ such advanced technology in printing, in so readily identifiable a way, that counterfeiting will become impractical. No one has explained to me exactly what is accomplished by pushing the cost of printing a ten-dollar bill above ten dollars—for ourselves. Wouldn't it be easier, not to mention a lot cheaper, to strike a coin containing precious metals evaluating to ten dollars, no special technology required?
The latter is, of course, a simplicity that the government is incapable of grasping. If we want to confound the counterfeiters, let us begin with the U. S. Treasury Department, the greatest (by far) "counterfeiter" of all time, flooding the world with currency of steadily and deliberately declining value. Dollar-denominated securities have slipped ten-fold in fifty-odd years. This disgraceful performance has robbed almost every aging citizen of a significant fraction of his pension (if the thieves had not gotten to it first), without even the slightest moral excuse. To find out how this is justified, consult John Kenneth Galbraith on the subject of "monetary policy." (Oops, too late.)
On second thought, I should not be that surprised about the appearance of pink money. We have been spending the red kind for a long time.
Whew, that was close! Hosni Mubarak, the dictatorissimo of Egypt, was under the gun from the U.S. State Department to install a bit of democracy in Egypt, until he was saved by the bell. Thank Allah for the Palestinians. With just the tiniest sneak smell of the foetid fruit of democracy in the Middle East, namely, the election of a Hamas "government" in Palestine, the State Department has apparently had second thoughts about unfettered democracy, and Mubarak has returned to his old ways, suspending constitutional protection against arrest without warrant or trial for another two years in the "emergency."
Talk about a deep sigh of relief!
I must admit that I like nation-building under Bush no better than I did under Clinton. That the Bush administration is no better at it does not keep it from being more determined. Accordingly, the price is higher. Even worse, the Bushings may actually achieve a little success at it.
The Democrats have made it their mantra to repeat daily that Bush began the war on false premises, i.e., Bush lied, there were no "weapons of mass destruction." (The latter phrase is so irritating; simply say, "nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.") Of course, there were plenty of chemical weapons. We didn't find them, but they had, without question, been there at some point. Besides, with a character like Saddam, even the suspicion of weapons like that in his possession is more than enough reason to remove him.
Personally, I am quite comfortable with the "weapons of mass destruction" premise. It is the other premise that bothers me, the one about fighting a Global War on Terror (GWOT). First of all, "terror" is a feeling, not an enemy. But even if our war is actually against terrorism, or even terrorists, the premise is still flawed. There are terrorism and terrorists in numerous places in the world that we have no intention of engaging, a few even that I have some sympathy with (those trying to jack up the Chinese Communist regime, for instance). Even so, we do not oppose terrorists solely because of their tactics. This should not be a war against a particular fashion of fighting wars.
No, this is a war against America's enemies, and we should have the courage to name them—Islamic fundamentalists in various places. We have no cause (at this point) against any other group, so far as I know. And though Saddam was not personally an adherent of Islamic fundamentalism, he supported their cause in a big way. But because the war is wrongly named, thus reflecting the flawed premise, it was hard to see the connection between toppling Saddam Hussein and the GWOT, thus opening the door to Bush's critics. It may also have had the effect of perpetuating a fundamental misunderstanding of our aims.
Looking back, I think the first part worked well. Saddam was defeated in a matter of a few days, all his assets destroyed, and his government removed from power everywhere in Iraq. That went OK. I have learned to like regime change. Very refreshing. If we had left it at that, I think it would have all turned out peachy.
But then the administration decided to build a new Iraq, over the objections of a few malcontents. You know the rest. We lack the determination to bomb them into submission. We lack the ruthlessness to go through the population with a fine-tooth comb. We even lack the resolve to shoot the real bad guys as long as they are unarmed. We are probably not fit to run an empire—too much inherited morality. It is that "all men are created equal" stuff that is doing us in.
What we could have done, after the fall of Saddam, is to pack up our gear, announce to the Iraqis that the mess was theirs to clean up, that they should shoot Saddam when they find him, and that if the Iraqis create another government we don't like, we'll come back and knock it down, too. Then many of us would have lived happily ever after. It is not the initial war that was based on false premises, but the nation-building that followed—the fantasy of security and stability in a nation that hates the West and its values.
There are four other reasons why this approach to nation-building is troubling:
First of all, Iraq is not one people, but three (at least). Why on earth can't they have separate countries?
Second, democracy is not the cause of peace and freedom, but its consequence. We just witnessed the revolting result of unfettered democracy in the Palestinian Territory with the election of representatives of Hamas, a shadowy terrorist organization of the most diabolical antecedents.
Third, the Iraqis are going to have an Islamic republic in place no matter what we do. I certainly do not relish the idea of expending blood and treasure for the right of the Iraqis violently to repress all other religious persuasions, as they will unquestionably do. Already, the Iraqi constitution, approved by our State Department, holds the official religion of Iraq to be Islam. Why are we paying for that?
Finally, Iran will come over and gobble up such parts of Iraq as they desire the moment our back is turned. Meanwhile, we have expended so much energy and effort on Iraq that we will not have the ability to accomplish the change of regime required in Iran.
We need to stop doing good and start doing what is needful. For any free Iraqi government to meet the standards of civilization that we in the West expect of it will require a change of culture beyond the powers of any occupier that stays less than fifty years. (Even that did not work with the Irish.) Are we ready for that kind of commitment?
We are probably, without wanting to, going to make that kind of commitment anyway. As matters presently stand, I can state with confidence that you will be able to see the glint of the sun off the wings of American warplanes from your room on the 25th floor of the Baghdad Motel 6, early on the morning of May 2, 2056.
Have a nice day.
Alright, I surrender. The conspiracy theorists were right all along.
I have read the word gravitas half a dozen times in my life. I do not believe I have ever heard it spoken. Though gravitas is an extremely rare word, this Latinism has quite a clear meaning: serious competence, weighty authority, by analogy to gravity. While it escapes me how this word can carry any meaning different from "gravity," one must still concede its fundamental utility.
But to go a lifetime without hearing the word spoken and then to encounter it ten times in one day (I was still stateside in summer, 2000) sets off alarms that one cannot ignore. To state how far this is beyond coincidence would beggar the language, would strip it bare of superlatives. Impossible: it must be a conspiracy.
There can only be on plausible conclusion: one master scriptwriter prepared the script for all the liberal mouthpieces to read on the air or copy into their columns. This puppet-master is now exposed for the force that he is. His (or, quite possibly, her) identity remains to be discovered. But no reasonable person can doubt his existence.
Meanwhile, I must confess that I have not only stepped onto the steep, slippery slope, I have slid all the way to the bottom, where I am presently lying, bearing numerous cuts and bruises to which I am oblivious in the light of this epiphany. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, as they say. And so my denial of malevolence in favor of stupidity or cupidity as an explanation for all the evils done in the name of Democrats has been demonstrated to be a whitewash, ... er, graywash, that is. My eyes are open, for the fact that it has all been a sinister plot, led and coordinated from the top (wherever the "top" is), is now exposed to the world.
Gravitas. Who would have thought that it would take just one word?
On this, at least, we should be united. People can disagree about whether the tsunami was God's judgment or simply a natural occurrence (I see no particular reason why it could not be both). But the evil that is Thailand's multi-billion-dollar child prostitution industry was focused, in part, in Phuket, which was ravaged by the tsunami.
In the post-tsunami period, when our government was whooping up aid, official and voluntary, to the stricken area, I listened in vain for any hint that we might have second thoughts about aid for Thailand. On the contrary, there seemed to be a conscious effort to remain non-judgmental concerning the recipients of aid. I simply cannot understand the consciences of our leaders on this matter. An industry this large necessarily involves the government of Thailand. How can our leaders turn a blind eye to that?
Can we not agree on this? Is there a voting block in America who defend child prostitution on moral grounds? Is there a vested interest in the child slavery trade that has such a hold over our government that it cannot be ignored in policy decisions? Is there anyone in America who does not utterly despise this trade and want it stopped by any reasonable means?
I have mentally tried out all the feasible explanations and the only one that works is that American policy-makers are devoted to some kind of global moral equivalence principle. Even that hardly explains the American government going out of its way to nullify its people's most basic values in its policy. And the scandal extends far beyond the government—of the big NGO's, only World Vision (wouldn't you know it—a bunch of Christians) has taken a firm stand on this issue.
I want our tsunami relief pointedly and deliberately to skip Thailand. I want the U.S. and other civilized countries to take a stand, a moral stand, against this despicable practice. And let it be a stand that deals out consequences. It is not enough to preach. The U.S. and other civilized nations must actively withhold all aid. Until there is starvation along the coast of Thailand, we have been too generous.
I don't want Phuket to be rebuilt—ever. I want the hotels and resorts to be destroyed. I want tourists who have Thailand on their passports actively investigated for illegal acts. I want the beaches to be abandoned. I want the economy ruined. I want the people to suffer.
And for their cowardice, I want GHWBush and Bill Clinton repudiated. I'm probably dreaming. But will not someone in a position of responsibility tell the truth about Phuket, Thailand?
I have exhumed the back issues of FRATRICIDE from their resting place in the archives of Deltos.com, and placed them on Blogger, which I am pleased to say is quite a fine medium for this kind of thing. Feel free to glance back at the previous issues and post comments as you see fit.
As I look back on the past issues of FRATRICIDE, I am pleased to see that there are a few paragraphs here and there that are not completely dated, though for the most part, it addressed the minutiae of contemporary topics and fashions of thought. Still, I was struck by nostalgia here and there as I worked my way through the task of uploading the archives. I was also struck with the conviction that very little is different and that the targets may have changed their colors but not their stripes.
Enjoy.
All contents © Copyright 1995-2006 by Redmon Barbry ¶ 12:51 PM
