So, the Rt. Rev. Timothy Geithner is out preaching the Doctrine of Frugality. His message is simple, “The country must live within its means.” “Deficits must be brought down.” This, of course, will “require hard choices.”
Now, logic and common sense would dictate that the most obvious place to start is our bloated military empire. We are mired in two wars that aren’t going anywhere. We are being dragged down by a military-industrial complex that is little more than a dinosaur. The Pentagon has morphed into a gargantuan leech that is sucking our economy dry even as it injects its toxin into our civil liberties in the name of peace and security.
But I forget: logic and common sense are anathema to the Beltway.
The truth is that our military-foreign policy is not ruled by a reasoned assessment of our goals and objectives; it is ruled by a small gaggle of key buzzwords. Our policymakers have made security© a fetish. We need a national defense© that is robust©. All options must “remain on the table”.© To withdraw from Afghanistan or Iraq would damage our credibility© The last thing any politician can afford is to be perceived as weak© on national defense©
So it is that we wantonly destroy countries and kill children all in the name of our sacred buzzwords. And this is why, when the time comes to “live within our means” our military empire will remain untouched.
Rev. Geithner’s acolyte, Barack Obama, has spelled out where the cuts will come. He has promised to shape a new Social Security and Medicare bargain with America because “we” must get control over our entitlements, and there is only one entitlement that counts—maintaining the health of America's defense contractors.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
The House Trips the Light Fantastic
To be a player in the corporate state you’ve got to be fast on your feet. It takes moves worthy of an Astaire to appear as if you’re tossing gold coins to the starving masses when all you’re tossing is lead slugs.
Last night, the House passed the “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” a measure that gives much if you can afford to take advantage of it. It is a bill long on aspiration and painfully short on detail.
Yes, there is a public option and yes, the wingnuts denied federal funding for abortions.
It’s a boondoggle for private insurers because everyone has to have coverage. If a family can’t afford it, they’re hit with a fine equal to 2.5 percent of their gross income. For a family of four, the poverty level is $22,050. So if the family can’t afford the public option, they are fined $551 or 30% of a month’s salary. (No food on the table during that month.) Waivers are available, but details are short as to how they would be granted.
Medicaid is expanded from 100 percent to 150 percent of the poverty level. For our family of four, this would boost their eligibility to $33,075. The family making a dollar more than that would still be forced to purchase insurance. If they failed to do so, they would face a fine of $827, still 30% of a month’s salary.
The bill offers tax subsidies for individuals between 150 and 400 percent ($33,050-$88,200) of the poverty level. However, this provision overlooks the fact that poor families life hand-to-month and paycheck-to-paycheck. It’s not as if they have stock holdings that will compensate for the hold torn in their income by fines or premium payments until the tax subsidy kicks in. But, what the hell! Stale Cheerios still taste good even with water instead of milk.
With the abortion exclusion, Congress kicked a little more pork to the insurance industry. Women who want coverage for abortions will be able to purchase a rider from a private company.
What we have here is an irrational bill cobbled together to give as much to the proles as possible without unduly upsetting the House’s corporate handlers.
Now it goes to the Senate, then to a House/Senate conference.
The only sane approach to health coverage is a single payer pan. What will finally emerge is a bill that does its damndest to look sane, and is sane, as long as you ignore the straight jacket it is wearing.
Last night, the House passed the “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” a measure that gives much if you can afford to take advantage of it. It is a bill long on aspiration and painfully short on detail.
Yes, there is a public option and yes, the wingnuts denied federal funding for abortions.
It’s a boondoggle for private insurers because everyone has to have coverage. If a family can’t afford it, they’re hit with a fine equal to 2.5 percent of their gross income. For a family of four, the poverty level is $22,050. So if the family can’t afford the public option, they are fined $551 or 30% of a month’s salary. (No food on the table during that month.) Waivers are available, but details are short as to how they would be granted.
Medicaid is expanded from 100 percent to 150 percent of the poverty level. For our family of four, this would boost their eligibility to $33,075. The family making a dollar more than that would still be forced to purchase insurance. If they failed to do so, they would face a fine of $827, still 30% of a month’s salary.
The bill offers tax subsidies for individuals between 150 and 400 percent ($33,050-$88,200) of the poverty level. However, this provision overlooks the fact that poor families life hand-to-month and paycheck-to-paycheck. It’s not as if they have stock holdings that will compensate for the hold torn in their income by fines or premium payments until the tax subsidy kicks in. But, what the hell! Stale Cheerios still taste good even with water instead of milk.
With the abortion exclusion, Congress kicked a little more pork to the insurance industry. Women who want coverage for abortions will be able to purchase a rider from a private company.
What we have here is an irrational bill cobbled together to give as much to the proles as possible without unduly upsetting the House’s corporate handlers.
Now it goes to the Senate, then to a House/Senate conference.
The only sane approach to health coverage is a single payer pan. What will finally emerge is a bill that does its damndest to look sane, and is sane, as long as you ignore the straight jacket it is wearing.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Toxic Idealism
Noble ideals produce a fatal paradox. We all buy into them; who doesn’t believe in freedom, democracy, liberation and civil liberties? These are ideals that have taken centuries to evolve in the West and are currently under siege as the United States continues to evolve into a corporatized military state, which could be why we’re so hell-bent on spreading them to the Middle East.
And that is where the paradox turns fatal. Ideals have the habit of coalescing into absolutes, and absolutes have a habit of shedding blood when one nation attempts to impose them on another. Missionary zeal has a long and deadly history in the West that dates back to the days when the missionaries accompanied Spanish conquistadors as they savaged Latin America.
We now see this same missionary zeal at work in Afghanistan where we are told that ours is an effort to liberate Afghan women from the yoke of oppression that has been placed on their shoulders by a misogynist regime. It has appeal because in truth, women in that country are treated as if they’re chattel.
The paradox, here, is that women’s rights will never ride into Afghanistan astride a drone. In Vietnam we destroyed villages to save them; in Afghanistan, we destroy wedding parties to free them.
Two years ago, Malalai Joya was expelled from the Afghan parliament for denouncing corruption and the occupation. She sums up the paradox beautifully when she say, “The United States and NATO eight years ago occupied my country under the banner of woman’s rights and democracy. But they have only pushed us from the frying pan into the fire. They put into power men who are photocopies of the Taliban.”
Nothing corrupts a noble ideal like ignoble means. Yet, attempts to spread the ideal always become toxic because the ideal is seen as an absolute, and when implementing an absolute one must destroy all who oppose it. And in doing so, the ideal loses its nobility.
Missionary zeal is a product of western hubris. All too often it is assumed that the western worldview sits atop the Great Chain of Being as if we represent the end product of social evolution. After all, don’t we have more “stuff” that the rest of the world?
Because God has so blessed us, the thinking goes, we have a moral obligation to spread this lifestyle to the ignorant savages of the world and turn them all into middleclass consumers, whether they want to or not.
Progressives have been sucked into this argument. They are reluctant to oppose the slaughter in Afghanistan because they see it as a fight for women’s rights, even though our efforts are having the opposite effect.
The treatment of women in Afghanistan is abysmal. Both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance are little more than narco-thugs. However, the brutal truth is that our military occupation of the country is only making these conditions worse. An equally brutal truth is that change will only come to Afghanistan when all foreign troops leave and courageous Afghan women like Malalai Joya bring change to the country from the inside out.
Of course, the above argument has one fatal flaw: noble ideals are simply marketing gimmicks to sell a war that has an ulterior motive, be it expanding markets or securing a supply of natural resources. It is an unfortunate blind spot in the progressive vision that it doesn’t see this.
And that is where the paradox turns fatal. Ideals have the habit of coalescing into absolutes, and absolutes have a habit of shedding blood when one nation attempts to impose them on another. Missionary zeal has a long and deadly history in the West that dates back to the days when the missionaries accompanied Spanish conquistadors as they savaged Latin America.
We now see this same missionary zeal at work in Afghanistan where we are told that ours is an effort to liberate Afghan women from the yoke of oppression that has been placed on their shoulders by a misogynist regime. It has appeal because in truth, women in that country are treated as if they’re chattel.
The paradox, here, is that women’s rights will never ride into Afghanistan astride a drone. In Vietnam we destroyed villages to save them; in Afghanistan, we destroy wedding parties to free them.
Two years ago, Malalai Joya was expelled from the Afghan parliament for denouncing corruption and the occupation. She sums up the paradox beautifully when she say, “The United States and NATO eight years ago occupied my country under the banner of woman’s rights and democracy. But they have only pushed us from the frying pan into the fire. They put into power men who are photocopies of the Taliban.”
Nothing corrupts a noble ideal like ignoble means. Yet, attempts to spread the ideal always become toxic because the ideal is seen as an absolute, and when implementing an absolute one must destroy all who oppose it. And in doing so, the ideal loses its nobility.
Missionary zeal is a product of western hubris. All too often it is assumed that the western worldview sits atop the Great Chain of Being as if we represent the end product of social evolution. After all, don’t we have more “stuff” that the rest of the world?
Because God has so blessed us, the thinking goes, we have a moral obligation to spread this lifestyle to the ignorant savages of the world and turn them all into middleclass consumers, whether they want to or not.
Progressives have been sucked into this argument. They are reluctant to oppose the slaughter in Afghanistan because they see it as a fight for women’s rights, even though our efforts are having the opposite effect.
The treatment of women in Afghanistan is abysmal. Both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance are little more than narco-thugs. However, the brutal truth is that our military occupation of the country is only making these conditions worse. An equally brutal truth is that change will only come to Afghanistan when all foreign troops leave and courageous Afghan women like Malalai Joya bring change to the country from the inside out.
Of course, the above argument has one fatal flaw: noble ideals are simply marketing gimmicks to sell a war that has an ulterior motive, be it expanding markets or securing a supply of natural resources. It is an unfortunate blind spot in the progressive vision that it doesn’t see this.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The Secret Life of the Lie
As a work of art, the lie is perfection personified. It is a polished gem of intellectual brilliance that transcends the mundane world of cause and effect.
Lies always trump because lies scream while truth only stutters. Every lie files down the shards of complexity that stud the truth until only a smooth surface remains that reflects the vacuity of the lie. Thus, the lie is the most democratic of utterances because it simplifies intricate issues so they may be easily digested by the proles.
The lie functions best when it has a label it can wield like a cudgel. It needs an “other” upon whom this label can be hung, a label so crated that it turns the “other” into the personification of evil. For decades, “communist” served this purpose only to be replaced by “terrorist.”
What the lie wishes to accomplish is not fear of the evil the label represents, but fear of having the label hung on oneself.
The lie is its own justification and needs neither rational argument nor reality to breathe. That infamous profit of revelatory bullshit, E.A. Hayek, coined a succinct dingleberry when he wrote, “The issue of justification is indeed a red herring.”[1]
Without the lie, there could be no progress, for to proclaim all progress good is one of the central lies that have made the rise of corporatism such an irresistible force. The barren fact is that all progress is suffering, be it the destitution of its victims or the moral decay of its beneficiaries. The myth of progress succeeds because it is so internalized and ingrained into our psyches that those who dare question it are dismissed as wild-eyed radicals. It ranks right up there with the superstitious belief in the “Invisible Hand of the Market,” that precious rationale for enriching the few while impoverishing the many.
The lie simplifies and paints in broad strokes of darkness and light. The lie soothes and comforts. Its certainty puts the mind at ease. Wrapped in mendacity’s security blanket the prole’s misery becomes bearable because his anger is directed away from those who caused his misery and is focused on those who are blamed for his misery.
[1] E.A. Hayek. The Fatal Conceit: The Error of Socialism. Pg. 68
Lies always trump because lies scream while truth only stutters. Every lie files down the shards of complexity that stud the truth until only a smooth surface remains that reflects the vacuity of the lie. Thus, the lie is the most democratic of utterances because it simplifies intricate issues so they may be easily digested by the proles.
The lie functions best when it has a label it can wield like a cudgel. It needs an “other” upon whom this label can be hung, a label so crated that it turns the “other” into the personification of evil. For decades, “communist” served this purpose only to be replaced by “terrorist.”
What the lie wishes to accomplish is not fear of the evil the label represents, but fear of having the label hung on oneself.
The lie is its own justification and needs neither rational argument nor reality to breathe. That infamous profit of revelatory bullshit, E.A. Hayek, coined a succinct dingleberry when he wrote, “The issue of justification is indeed a red herring.”[1]
Without the lie, there could be no progress, for to proclaim all progress good is one of the central lies that have made the rise of corporatism such an irresistible force. The barren fact is that all progress is suffering, be it the destitution of its victims or the moral decay of its beneficiaries. The myth of progress succeeds because it is so internalized and ingrained into our psyches that those who dare question it are dismissed as wild-eyed radicals. It ranks right up there with the superstitious belief in the “Invisible Hand of the Market,” that precious rationale for enriching the few while impoverishing the many.
The lie simplifies and paints in broad strokes of darkness and light. The lie soothes and comforts. Its certainty puts the mind at ease. Wrapped in mendacity’s security blanket the prole’s misery becomes bearable because his anger is directed away from those who caused his misery and is focused on those who are blamed for his misery.
[1] E.A. Hayek. The Fatal Conceit: The Error of Socialism. Pg. 68
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Shuffle, Kick, Shuffle
Having paid its requisite lip service to the public option that probably won’t see the light of day in any recognizable form, the Obama administration is now genuflecting at the altar of financial regulation. Like most genuflects, it is a knee-jerk reaction devoid of meaning.
These theatrics are necessary to placate an increasingly restive public that is beginning to realize that it’s been scammed into believing that Wall Street, the Pentagon and the Beltway are America when, in fact, they are alien entities inimical to all we stand for. Their goal is to transform America into a country that is foreign unto herself.
The keystone of the reform proposal is to require banks deemed too big to fail to prepare living wills, which are action plans that will facilitate their winding down the next time they plunge us into another financial crisis. In theory, these plans are to list the amount and location of all the banks toxic assets that would be defaulted on in the event the bank went under.
That is: the plan would list the toxic assets except for those excluded under the various and assorted loopholes that would turn any reform bill into a slice of Swiss cheese. It’s kind of like letting a criminal sentence himself.
Financial reform is simply a Mother Goose story that is the product of a larger metanarrative. There will be no comprehensive financial regulatory legislation passed just as no meaningful healthcare reform is going to see the light of day because:
When the Soviet Union collapsed, our oligarchs formed a corporate conga line and started kick-shuffling themselves right back to the nineteenth century, choreographed by that master of empathy Bill “I feel your pain” Clinton to music scored and arranged by Ronald “Mourning in America” Regan.
Congress quickly joined the line as it shuffled, kicked and pocketed large checks at the same time in an amazing display of manual dexterity.
It’s tricky. Gotta keep the natives placated so our overlords can party on. Gotta get them to clap time to the music.
They’re getting restless, though, as they are forced out of their homes and into the backseats of the cars they’re hiding from the repo man.
Not a problem. Just launch another million-dollar media blitz convincing them the impoverishment is prosperity just as they’ve been taught war is security. Anything as long as we can keep that shuffle-kick in motion.
These theatrics are necessary to placate an increasingly restive public that is beginning to realize that it’s been scammed into believing that Wall Street, the Pentagon and the Beltway are America when, in fact, they are alien entities inimical to all we stand for. Their goal is to transform America into a country that is foreign unto herself.
The keystone of the reform proposal is to require banks deemed too big to fail to prepare living wills, which are action plans that will facilitate their winding down the next time they plunge us into another financial crisis. In theory, these plans are to list the amount and location of all the banks toxic assets that would be defaulted on in the event the bank went under.
That is: the plan would list the toxic assets except for those excluded under the various and assorted loopholes that would turn any reform bill into a slice of Swiss cheese. It’s kind of like letting a criminal sentence himself.
Financial reform is simply a Mother Goose story that is the product of a larger metanarrative. There will be no comprehensive financial regulatory legislation passed just as no meaningful healthcare reform is going to see the light of day because:
When the Soviet Union collapsed, our oligarchs formed a corporate conga line and started kick-shuffling themselves right back to the nineteenth century, choreographed by that master of empathy Bill “I feel your pain” Clinton to music scored and arranged by Ronald “Mourning in America” Regan.
Congress quickly joined the line as it shuffled, kicked and pocketed large checks at the same time in an amazing display of manual dexterity.
It’s tricky. Gotta keep the natives placated so our overlords can party on. Gotta get them to clap time to the music.
They’re getting restless, though, as they are forced out of their homes and into the backseats of the cars they’re hiding from the repo man.
Not a problem. Just launch another million-dollar media blitz convincing them the impoverishment is prosperity just as they’ve been taught war is security. Anything as long as we can keep that shuffle-kick in motion.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Deconstructing the GDP
There was a flicker of hope on Wall Street, last week, when the GDP grew at an annualized rate of 3.5 percent. Obama was quick to crow that the jump was, “[A]n affirmation that the recession is abating and the steps we’ve taken have made a difference.”
The Dow, that harbinger of mob psychology jumped 200 points pushing it over the mystical 10,000 mark. (Friday it plunged 250 points when it became obvious that public wasn’t impressed. Consumer confidence was still hiding in the basement and showed no inclination to come upstairs and join the celebration.)
Barry Grey did a masterful job of deconstructing the jump in the GDP. He points out that, “Sixty-three percent of the 3.5 percent increase in the GDP was due to temporary government tax credits to consumers that have either expired or are set to expire next month.”
Of course the GDP is going to jump when public funds to the tune of $11 trillion are pumped into the economy. Grey goes onto say, “The outcome is a short-term boost in growth—one that is still insufficient to bring down the jobless rate—which paves the way for even greater financial and economic convulsions in the coming months.”
There was one bright spot that did surface last week. We learned that economic inequality is no longer a problem. Lord Griffiths, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs proclaimed that “The public must learn to ‘tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity for all.”
Just when you thought trickle-down economics had croaked it pulls a Jesus and rises from the dead. It’s the old story: liquefy the top and the liquid will flow down to the starving masses.
And it’s true; liquid is trickling down. Unfortunately, the liquid isn’t money.
It will be interesting to see what fantasies Wall Street chases this week.
The Dow, that harbinger of mob psychology jumped 200 points pushing it over the mystical 10,000 mark. (Friday it plunged 250 points when it became obvious that public wasn’t impressed. Consumer confidence was still hiding in the basement and showed no inclination to come upstairs and join the celebration.)
Barry Grey did a masterful job of deconstructing the jump in the GDP. He points out that, “Sixty-three percent of the 3.5 percent increase in the GDP was due to temporary government tax credits to consumers that have either expired or are set to expire next month.”
Of course the GDP is going to jump when public funds to the tune of $11 trillion are pumped into the economy. Grey goes onto say, “The outcome is a short-term boost in growth—one that is still insufficient to bring down the jobless rate—which paves the way for even greater financial and economic convulsions in the coming months.”
There was one bright spot that did surface last week. We learned that economic inequality is no longer a problem. Lord Griffiths, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs proclaimed that “The public must learn to ‘tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity for all.”
Just when you thought trickle-down economics had croaked it pulls a Jesus and rises from the dead. It’s the old story: liquefy the top and the liquid will flow down to the starving masses.
And it’s true; liquid is trickling down. Unfortunately, the liquid isn’t money.
It will be interesting to see what fantasies Wall Street chases this week.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Humanizing the Dehumanized
Empires need labels because they dehumanize so effectively. (Everyone labels, but empires thrive on them.) Our empire swarms with labels: Muslim, Islamofascist, terrorist, narcostate and illegal immigrant. The list goes on and on. Once a label is assigned, a human being is transformed into a subhuman “Other.”
The last thing we want to hear is the voice of the Other. We tolerate only two things from the Other: to frighten us and in doing to justify its death and destruction.
What follows is a voice of the Other speaking with power and eloquence. It is a voice that reclaims its humanity and shows it to us all.
Daring To Understand
By Maryam Sakeenah
31 October, 2009Countercurrents.org
A Suicide bomber: A grotesque, bloodthirsty monster. And this haggard, greying old man with his vacant eyes and broken slipper, like the broken spirit within as the cameras stare into his face and the headlines are splashed across interfaces: Suicide Bomber. Caught in the Act. A thrilling, juicy piece of news. It will fly. And it will sell. Fast. Fast like the sleek and swanky black limousines that whoosh past you through the Main Boulevard making the dust fly off in all directions; the dust that finally settles on the dusty roadside beggar, adding another layer to shroud him into dusty oblivion; it settles slowly, holding out against the fast limousines, the fast traffic, the fast music and the fast food. Slowly, like death. Fast and slow, making the rhythm of the city_ the thoughtlessly fast, and the resiliently slow_ fighting life’s battle in the streets of my city.
The Monster returns. He’s unconventional, though. Not with the horns and the fangs and all. But with dark circles, the sunken, dimmed eyes, the creased-up face with his advancing years, the silver in his hair. Sun-beaten, sun-worn, threadbare_ my definition of the Monster. The definers have hammered the definition on me with authoritative finality. I succumb_ like everybody else. I ought to believe he is dangerous. I am supposed to condemn him, get frightened of him, loathe him, spit in his face, and righteously pronounce him horrendously sinful, perverted, hideous, damned, hell-bound, with all the wealth of jingoistic and religious rhetoric at my disposal. I cannot but obey. I join the chorus. Like everybody else.
And I kill me softly. I stifle the human essence, the still small voice that resists. The voice that questions. The militant voice_ always politically incorrect. It questions ‘why?’ It does not allow me the comfort of following the crowd and biding my time. It discomforts me with the instinct to seek out the answers for myself. It makes me wonder why I have to buy the definition and believe that the pathetic grey man was a vile monster. It makes me wonder why, after all, he was a monster, perhaps_ or so it seems?
I do not judge. I do not allow myself the terrible privilege. I just wonder, and want my right to ask questions. I want my right to feel, to understand. I want my right to be and stay human. And I simply wonder what went wrong...
In 2001, when the United States pounded Afghanistan with their firepower just across the border on a flimsy pretext, my people here in Pakistan were hurt too, because the national boundary running through the northern tribes does not cut across eon-old tribal affiliation. With the Pashtuns on the other side of the Durand Line under occupation, the Pashtuns on this side considered it a tribal obligation and religious duty to assist. That is the ethic running in the blood of the Pathans_ the ethic they grow up with, just as their fathers, grandfathers and greatgrandfathers had grown up with it. You cannot hope to extort it from the hearts of men. The freedom they prize is a treasure they would not give up for the world. This fierce defence of their freedom is something you simply cannot hope to extricate. Not with all your arsenal, your marines armed to the teeth.
The United States and its ‘non NATO ally’ failed to understand this simple truth. Afghanistan bled, and Pakistani tribesmen, those once-upon-a-time heroic sons of the soil suffered with it. Yet we did not fall to brutalizing each other. The myths, on the other hand_ Terrorism, Extremism, Fanaticism, Fundamentalism, Enlightened Moderation_ continued to proliferate, and the Great Fiction encroached upon sanities. Yet we did not fall to brutalizing each other.
Till, a couple of years down the line, the Former General imperiously ordered an operation in Waziristan. It came to pass. In the thick of the darkness, in the hush of the night. The country taken by surprise. In clandestine moves, the trigger-happy military men advanced and we waited with bated breath. The usual collateral damage. Men, women, children, masjids, madrassas, schools, earthen huts. With a fell sweep, on orders of a Dictator. We still did not fall to brutalizing each other.
Things took their logical course and the resistance began. A Pashtun resistance. Earlier, aggravated by their country’s alliance with the US and the establishment of American military bases in the north to assist the NATO-sponsored slaughter and occupation in Afghanistan, the Pashtuns had expressed resentment. Their government had refused to budge. Now, they were cannon fodder, officially. And for Somebody Else’s interests.
Faced with a guerrilla resistance in a rugged terrain by ruddy mountain dwellers imbued with the tribesman’s fighting spirit, the khakis were in a quagmire soon enough. To save face, and the little that was left, they sought reconciliation with the irate tribesmen. It materialized, with pledges on both sides_ the tribesmen agreeing to put down arms and let go the foreign militants (stationed in Pakistan ‘officially,’ and by Washington’s invitation, since the Soviet-Afghan war); and the Army agreeing to end the operation. We dared to hope.
Till the drone zeroed in on what we call Sovereignty. And on human lives_ madrassas, schools, wedding parties, followed by official apologies for ‘misguided missiles’ or ‘intelligence failure.’ Collateral Damage. Full Stop.
In 2006, before the TTP (Tehreek Taliban Pakistan) was ever heard of, right after a successful settlement between the government and the tribal leaders which promised a durable peace in the restive north, American UAV ‘drones’ battered a village searching ‘militants’, leading to several civilian deaths. And so the talks derailed, the guns were picked up again. With blessings from Washington. The TTP raised its head shortly afterwards_ a group much more militant and even violent in character than the original Afghan Taliban of yore who do not very proudly profess association with these Pakistani neo-Taliban. The TTP was a child begotten of the vicious cycle of violence and injustice.
The Pakistan govenment’s complicity in the intermittent and incessant drone attacks is poorly disguised by pathetic foreign office spokespeople. First there were the official apologies. Then, the flabbergasted attempts to explain the bloody ‘deal’. And soon enough there were none. Just the raining missiles and the human mincemeat. And handshakes and high-profile visits.
But the victims do not forget their dead. They are not taken in with prettily phrased official apologies which cannot bring their dead back. The hurt festers. It turns poison. It maddens. It dehumanizes. It turns men into suicide bombs. It makes life pointless, worthless. It makes the world a cruel, hateful place. It ignites the sense of honour and incites a burning revenge. And it makes my maddened countrymen, brutalized by unashamed tyrants, fall to brutalizing one another.
And it is as simple as that.
Blending into the chorus, soaking up the definitions, the headlines, the jingoism and the propaganda, the simple fact gets lost somewhere in the morass of our sensibilities. We righteously condemn, we judge, we toss our heads from side to side with disapproval and nod it up and down in assent. Just where and when we are wanted to. And we harden up to this simple fact, failing to understand. Failing to question. Dehumanizing ourselves.
Journalist Hamid Mir recounted his firsthand experience of visiting the injured in a primitive hospital in Waziristan after a US airstrike. A young boy, having lost his limbs, informed that his mother too had died in a similar attack, and that, in her dying moments, she had instructed him to avenge in Islamabad_ where the decisions to maim and kill are made_ what was done to her in Bajaur. Years later, his elder brother was caught in Islamabad attempting to blow himself up in a high-security area.
It is as simple as that. It is, plainly, human nature distorted brutally out of shape. It is, plainly, the work of our own hands. And it shall come to pass.
A ‘Winter Soldier’ working for the US Army in Iraq decided to quit the job, among several others like him. Addressing a meeting of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, he said: ‘Let me reverse the equation for a while. Let me ask you, that if a foreign force was to land in America on the excuse of democracy or freedom or whatever it may be, would not every patriotic American come out of his house with a shotgun? Would we not resist? What would you do?’ His voice trailed off in the midst of uproarious applause.
It is as simple as that. It is about being able to reverse the equation, and asking oneself ‘what would anyone do?’ It is about overturning the definitions and refusing to buy the propaganda. It is about refusing the official amnesia imposed on us all.
And it is not about Islam. It is not about an ‘Extremist Ideology’ out there to take you over by storm. It is not about monsters and demons. It is not about bloodthirsty suicide bombers with an inbuilt genetic drive to bomb the hell out of you. It is about human beings like you and me. It is about human beings horribly gone wrong. It is about the sinned-against who become sinning in this dreadful mire of poverty, disease, lawlessness, corruption. It is about naked, barbaric injustice and oppression. It is about human beings being made ‘as flies to the wanton boys.’
And it is as simple as that. As simple as Newton’s third law of motion. An equal and opposite reaction. To every action of ours.
So I refuse to sit in judgement. I refuse to self-righteously condemn. I refuse to sing along. And I demand my humanity, my right to think for myself, my right to question, my right to reclaim the Truth. ‘And if anyone of you would punish and lay the axe on the evil tree, let him see to its roots. What judgement would you pronounce on him who slays in the flesh and yet is slain in the spirit? And how persecute you him who is a deceiver and oppressor and yet in himself is aggrieved and outraged?’ (Kahlil Gibran).
I stand the risk of being misunderstood and misjudged. I do not condone the ongoing violent attacks in civilian areas all over Pakistan which victimize innocents. I cannot possibly justify them, nor can any human being in his right mind. But I think I can understand why. I can dare just that much.
And this understanding is important. Because it is through understanding that you reach the heart of the matter, and it is reaching the heart of the matter that you find the solution and begin the healing process. And the heart of the matter is the simple truth about human nature. The heart of the matter is to understand. The heart of the matter is looking to the roots. It is as simple as that.
To begin the healing, we need to set the record straight that this war never was ours, and that the critical transition from ‘theirs’ to ‘ours’ is the triumph of the mighty empire that seeks to export its wars to lands it can buy over with a few billion dollars. We need to face the wrongs we have done. We need to realize that there is no profit in the billions made out of the blood of innocents. We need to realize that violence begets violence. We need to realize that we willed this all, and that ending this vicious cycle of violence is our responsibility, because ‘a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent assent of the whole tree. So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong but with the secret will of you all.’ (Kahlil Gibran).
We need to realize that armies and weaponry can never win this war_ just like it never could in Vietnam, or in Iraq, or even in Afghanistan. And we need to realize that it is never too late or too impossible to sit down and talk things out with your own people, no matter how alienated they are. The troops must be withdrawn, the operation must end and we must get talking. These aren’t monsters, these were my countrymen, and it is never too late to get talking_ only my enemy would tell me otherwise.
There isn’t another way. The other option is to let this madness go on, making madmen of us all. The other option is the madness turning visible in all the horrors of spiraling violence_ bombs going off in the midst of my thriving cities, the gored flesh and the pools of blood, the gripping fear, the haunted, deserted roads. Just like the death and destruction reigning the dirt-streets of some unnamed village in Waziristan. It comes full circle.
Every bomb going off adds to the horrible, crippling Terror that sinks into my bones. The fear and hysteria is of far more import than the death and destruction. When I am frightened to hell, I am easily manipulated, and when I am easily manipulated, I am owned, controlled, made to do what Somebody requires of me. I lose my sovereignty, my identity, my everything. I become the etherized patient spread over the operating table. Somebody Else’s operating table.
And every bomb going off strengthens the case of the Somebody Else who tries to tell us their war is ours, and that we must do their dirty work and shut up with the billions of dollars of aid doled out. Every bomb going off will be quoted in Somebody’s speeches, telling us with triumphalism and authority how terribly important it is for us to stay the course, to keep on this self-destructive path. It will keep us terrorized so Somebody can promise us security with his Blackwaters and Dynacores. It will keep us impoverished so Somebody can win us with promises of aid. It will keep us enslaved so Somebody can convince us only they can truly liberate. And it will keep us repeating the ancient refrain: ‘Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, and War is Peace.’
It is as simple as that.
The last thing we want to hear is the voice of the Other. We tolerate only two things from the Other: to frighten us and in doing to justify its death and destruction.
What follows is a voice of the Other speaking with power and eloquence. It is a voice that reclaims its humanity and shows it to us all.
Daring To Understand
By Maryam Sakeenah
31 October, 2009Countercurrents.org
A Suicide bomber: A grotesque, bloodthirsty monster. And this haggard, greying old man with his vacant eyes and broken slipper, like the broken spirit within as the cameras stare into his face and the headlines are splashed across interfaces: Suicide Bomber. Caught in the Act. A thrilling, juicy piece of news. It will fly. And it will sell. Fast. Fast like the sleek and swanky black limousines that whoosh past you through the Main Boulevard making the dust fly off in all directions; the dust that finally settles on the dusty roadside beggar, adding another layer to shroud him into dusty oblivion; it settles slowly, holding out against the fast limousines, the fast traffic, the fast music and the fast food. Slowly, like death. Fast and slow, making the rhythm of the city_ the thoughtlessly fast, and the resiliently slow_ fighting life’s battle in the streets of my city.
The Monster returns. He’s unconventional, though. Not with the horns and the fangs and all. But with dark circles, the sunken, dimmed eyes, the creased-up face with his advancing years, the silver in his hair. Sun-beaten, sun-worn, threadbare_ my definition of the Monster. The definers have hammered the definition on me with authoritative finality. I succumb_ like everybody else. I ought to believe he is dangerous. I am supposed to condemn him, get frightened of him, loathe him, spit in his face, and righteously pronounce him horrendously sinful, perverted, hideous, damned, hell-bound, with all the wealth of jingoistic and religious rhetoric at my disposal. I cannot but obey. I join the chorus. Like everybody else.
And I kill me softly. I stifle the human essence, the still small voice that resists. The voice that questions. The militant voice_ always politically incorrect. It questions ‘why?’ It does not allow me the comfort of following the crowd and biding my time. It discomforts me with the instinct to seek out the answers for myself. It makes me wonder why I have to buy the definition and believe that the pathetic grey man was a vile monster. It makes me wonder why, after all, he was a monster, perhaps_ or so it seems?
I do not judge. I do not allow myself the terrible privilege. I just wonder, and want my right to ask questions. I want my right to feel, to understand. I want my right to be and stay human. And I simply wonder what went wrong...
In 2001, when the United States pounded Afghanistan with their firepower just across the border on a flimsy pretext, my people here in Pakistan were hurt too, because the national boundary running through the northern tribes does not cut across eon-old tribal affiliation. With the Pashtuns on the other side of the Durand Line under occupation, the Pashtuns on this side considered it a tribal obligation and religious duty to assist. That is the ethic running in the blood of the Pathans_ the ethic they grow up with, just as their fathers, grandfathers and greatgrandfathers had grown up with it. You cannot hope to extort it from the hearts of men. The freedom they prize is a treasure they would not give up for the world. This fierce defence of their freedom is something you simply cannot hope to extricate. Not with all your arsenal, your marines armed to the teeth.
The United States and its ‘non NATO ally’ failed to understand this simple truth. Afghanistan bled, and Pakistani tribesmen, those once-upon-a-time heroic sons of the soil suffered with it. Yet we did not fall to brutalizing each other. The myths, on the other hand_ Terrorism, Extremism, Fanaticism, Fundamentalism, Enlightened Moderation_ continued to proliferate, and the Great Fiction encroached upon sanities. Yet we did not fall to brutalizing each other.
Till, a couple of years down the line, the Former General imperiously ordered an operation in Waziristan. It came to pass. In the thick of the darkness, in the hush of the night. The country taken by surprise. In clandestine moves, the trigger-happy military men advanced and we waited with bated breath. The usual collateral damage. Men, women, children, masjids, madrassas, schools, earthen huts. With a fell sweep, on orders of a Dictator. We still did not fall to brutalizing each other.
Things took their logical course and the resistance began. A Pashtun resistance. Earlier, aggravated by their country’s alliance with the US and the establishment of American military bases in the north to assist the NATO-sponsored slaughter and occupation in Afghanistan, the Pashtuns had expressed resentment. Their government had refused to budge. Now, they were cannon fodder, officially. And for Somebody Else’s interests.
Faced with a guerrilla resistance in a rugged terrain by ruddy mountain dwellers imbued with the tribesman’s fighting spirit, the khakis were in a quagmire soon enough. To save face, and the little that was left, they sought reconciliation with the irate tribesmen. It materialized, with pledges on both sides_ the tribesmen agreeing to put down arms and let go the foreign militants (stationed in Pakistan ‘officially,’ and by Washington’s invitation, since the Soviet-Afghan war); and the Army agreeing to end the operation. We dared to hope.
Till the drone zeroed in on what we call Sovereignty. And on human lives_ madrassas, schools, wedding parties, followed by official apologies for ‘misguided missiles’ or ‘intelligence failure.’ Collateral Damage. Full Stop.
In 2006, before the TTP (Tehreek Taliban Pakistan) was ever heard of, right after a successful settlement between the government and the tribal leaders which promised a durable peace in the restive north, American UAV ‘drones’ battered a village searching ‘militants’, leading to several civilian deaths. And so the talks derailed, the guns were picked up again. With blessings from Washington. The TTP raised its head shortly afterwards_ a group much more militant and even violent in character than the original Afghan Taliban of yore who do not very proudly profess association with these Pakistani neo-Taliban. The TTP was a child begotten of the vicious cycle of violence and injustice.
The Pakistan govenment’s complicity in the intermittent and incessant drone attacks is poorly disguised by pathetic foreign office spokespeople. First there were the official apologies. Then, the flabbergasted attempts to explain the bloody ‘deal’. And soon enough there were none. Just the raining missiles and the human mincemeat. And handshakes and high-profile visits.
But the victims do not forget their dead. They are not taken in with prettily phrased official apologies which cannot bring their dead back. The hurt festers. It turns poison. It maddens. It dehumanizes. It turns men into suicide bombs. It makes life pointless, worthless. It makes the world a cruel, hateful place. It ignites the sense of honour and incites a burning revenge. And it makes my maddened countrymen, brutalized by unashamed tyrants, fall to brutalizing one another.
And it is as simple as that.
Blending into the chorus, soaking up the definitions, the headlines, the jingoism and the propaganda, the simple fact gets lost somewhere in the morass of our sensibilities. We righteously condemn, we judge, we toss our heads from side to side with disapproval and nod it up and down in assent. Just where and when we are wanted to. And we harden up to this simple fact, failing to understand. Failing to question. Dehumanizing ourselves.
Journalist Hamid Mir recounted his firsthand experience of visiting the injured in a primitive hospital in Waziristan after a US airstrike. A young boy, having lost his limbs, informed that his mother too had died in a similar attack, and that, in her dying moments, she had instructed him to avenge in Islamabad_ where the decisions to maim and kill are made_ what was done to her in Bajaur. Years later, his elder brother was caught in Islamabad attempting to blow himself up in a high-security area.
It is as simple as that. It is, plainly, human nature distorted brutally out of shape. It is, plainly, the work of our own hands. And it shall come to pass.
A ‘Winter Soldier’ working for the US Army in Iraq decided to quit the job, among several others like him. Addressing a meeting of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, he said: ‘Let me reverse the equation for a while. Let me ask you, that if a foreign force was to land in America on the excuse of democracy or freedom or whatever it may be, would not every patriotic American come out of his house with a shotgun? Would we not resist? What would you do?’ His voice trailed off in the midst of uproarious applause.
It is as simple as that. It is about being able to reverse the equation, and asking oneself ‘what would anyone do?’ It is about overturning the definitions and refusing to buy the propaganda. It is about refusing the official amnesia imposed on us all.
And it is not about Islam. It is not about an ‘Extremist Ideology’ out there to take you over by storm. It is not about monsters and demons. It is not about bloodthirsty suicide bombers with an inbuilt genetic drive to bomb the hell out of you. It is about human beings like you and me. It is about human beings horribly gone wrong. It is about the sinned-against who become sinning in this dreadful mire of poverty, disease, lawlessness, corruption. It is about naked, barbaric injustice and oppression. It is about human beings being made ‘as flies to the wanton boys.’
And it is as simple as that. As simple as Newton’s third law of motion. An equal and opposite reaction. To every action of ours.
So I refuse to sit in judgement. I refuse to self-righteously condemn. I refuse to sing along. And I demand my humanity, my right to think for myself, my right to question, my right to reclaim the Truth. ‘And if anyone of you would punish and lay the axe on the evil tree, let him see to its roots. What judgement would you pronounce on him who slays in the flesh and yet is slain in the spirit? And how persecute you him who is a deceiver and oppressor and yet in himself is aggrieved and outraged?’ (Kahlil Gibran).
I stand the risk of being misunderstood and misjudged. I do not condone the ongoing violent attacks in civilian areas all over Pakistan which victimize innocents. I cannot possibly justify them, nor can any human being in his right mind. But I think I can understand why. I can dare just that much.
And this understanding is important. Because it is through understanding that you reach the heart of the matter, and it is reaching the heart of the matter that you find the solution and begin the healing process. And the heart of the matter is the simple truth about human nature. The heart of the matter is to understand. The heart of the matter is looking to the roots. It is as simple as that.
To begin the healing, we need to set the record straight that this war never was ours, and that the critical transition from ‘theirs’ to ‘ours’ is the triumph of the mighty empire that seeks to export its wars to lands it can buy over with a few billion dollars. We need to face the wrongs we have done. We need to realize that there is no profit in the billions made out of the blood of innocents. We need to realize that violence begets violence. We need to realize that we willed this all, and that ending this vicious cycle of violence is our responsibility, because ‘a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent assent of the whole tree. So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong but with the secret will of you all.’ (Kahlil Gibran).
We need to realize that armies and weaponry can never win this war_ just like it never could in Vietnam, or in Iraq, or even in Afghanistan. And we need to realize that it is never too late or too impossible to sit down and talk things out with your own people, no matter how alienated they are. The troops must be withdrawn, the operation must end and we must get talking. These aren’t monsters, these were my countrymen, and it is never too late to get talking_ only my enemy would tell me otherwise.
There isn’t another way. The other option is to let this madness go on, making madmen of us all. The other option is the madness turning visible in all the horrors of spiraling violence_ bombs going off in the midst of my thriving cities, the gored flesh and the pools of blood, the gripping fear, the haunted, deserted roads. Just like the death and destruction reigning the dirt-streets of some unnamed village in Waziristan. It comes full circle.
Every bomb going off adds to the horrible, crippling Terror that sinks into my bones. The fear and hysteria is of far more import than the death and destruction. When I am frightened to hell, I am easily manipulated, and when I am easily manipulated, I am owned, controlled, made to do what Somebody requires of me. I lose my sovereignty, my identity, my everything. I become the etherized patient spread over the operating table. Somebody Else’s operating table.
And every bomb going off strengthens the case of the Somebody Else who tries to tell us their war is ours, and that we must do their dirty work and shut up with the billions of dollars of aid doled out. Every bomb going off will be quoted in Somebody’s speeches, telling us with triumphalism and authority how terribly important it is for us to stay the course, to keep on this self-destructive path. It will keep us terrorized so Somebody can promise us security with his Blackwaters and Dynacores. It will keep us impoverished so Somebody can win us with promises of aid. It will keep us enslaved so Somebody can convince us only they can truly liberate. And it will keep us repeating the ancient refrain: ‘Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, and War is Peace.’
It is as simple as that.
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