Oh Bam! Part B

Yes, yes, I know. I am all out of order. I should have put this one right after Part A, and I caused Madame unneeded consternation for my poor organization. Apols!

Today’s bag of wind deals mostly with international things, and as Madame is soon returning from her travels, perhaps it is apropos!

Obama’s description of Indonesia is a familiar pattern. A history of US short-sighted meddling, a meddling that betrayed several principles of democracy that the US supposedly stands for, ultimately rebounded on the US. Not only did the initial meddling in 1965 to remove an elected, popular nationalist leader and replace him with an “anti-communist” strongman lead to the massacre of hundreds of thousands initially and tens of thousands in subsequent years—there is sinful blood on our hands aplenty—but it was for naught. Indonesia, the fourth most populated nation in the world, is no longer an exporter but is now a net importer of oil, and the rampant corruption we both encouraged and turned a blind eye to further dragged on an economy that was transformed under Chicago school principles—principles that furthered globalization and enrichment of multinationals and their Western and Western-connected enterprises (including Chinese). When the bottom fell out in the Asian Crisis of 1997, a crisis both fueled and exacerbated by Wall Street speculators and the Western-controlled IMF, the austerity measures directed and largely taken (a few of which WERE needed to deal with the effects of corruption) further marginalized and made desperate large sectors of the population, and further environmentally degraded a nation already hard-pressed by population pressures.

Given that Indonesia has so many Muslims that it is the largest Muslim nation in the world, the ground for radicalization had been well fertilized. Enter into this picture another factor of American short-sightedness: our addiction to fossil fuels, particularly oil. With the US having to import large amounts of oil from Saudi Arabia, etc., the US is transferring large amounts of its wealth to an area of the world that, to put it charitably, does not cherish American interests or values. Leaving aside for future historians to scratch their heads at how insanely, self-destructively idiotic that is in nearly every measure of long-term interest, the question here is to what use is much of that money put to. The answer is that too much of the money is put into the advancement of Wahabist Islam, previously a minor sect of Islam that believes in the radical, theocratic, intolerant, repressive, often-violent ,and thoroughly anti-Western advancement of this theology/ideology of severe and mandatory Islamic law in all Muslim nations and communities, and eventually of Islamicizing all other nations. A more notable individual example of this philosophy is Osama bin Laden, who is a highly educated Saudi billionaire. Unfortunately, too many Americans, many of whom have little knowledge of Islamic history, doctrine, culture, etc., now perceive that Wahabist Islam IS Islam, a perception that further fuels polarization of views, options, and fears.

Under the weight of all the Western-induced transformation and with its obvious marginalizing and impoverishing effects on so many, the traditionally relaxed, tolerant, and culturally influenced form of decidedly non-Arab Islam that had been the hallmark of Indonesia began to change. Into this hotbed of discontent poured money to found Wahabist schools and mosques, and the production of Wahabist religious figures to spread Wahabist doctrines. The veils and burkhas among a rapidly increasing number of women are just one outward sign of change; it is the influence politically, and the violence, extremism, and terrorism, that is even more notable.

All an example of blowback. Whether it be that one, or the “seismic repercussions” (to use Obama’s words) of American intervention in Iran in 1953 that continues to haunt us to this day, Americans tend not to see connections. An ahistorical nation, we do not see history as very relevant, an aspect that repeatedly gets us and our country into trouble and undermines our long-term interests. If a nightclub is blown up in Indonesia, Americans scratch their heads and mutter words about how “crazy people are over there.” But for too many people across the ocean, America is a puzzling and infuriating hypocritical betrayer of its professed principles of fairness, freedom, self-direction, and “free-markets.” While there is some admiration for Americans and even to a certain extent American society with all its melting pot, efficiently business-like, and generally peaceful aspects of choice and possibility, there is often virulent resentment and even hatred for American government and American international business that, to the marginalized, appear to be the evil sources of most all their troubles. And indeed, our country’s actions and inactions (and, as a people, our culpable ignorance of those actions and inactions) has been a direct contributor to those resentments.

Obama reminds us in summary form that to see our own history as a someone from another country sees it is quite different from our own self-illusions, delusions, and willful masking and ignoring. We are against geographic conquest and raw power grabs, yet our history was full of them. We are against the repression and forcible removal of native peoples, yet our own history is full of that sort of behavior. We profess outrage at the meddling of others into the affairs of other countries (and outrage isn’t the word if the meddled country happens to be the USA), yet see it as perfectly justifiable that we meddle in the affairs, and even intervene outright, into any country we wish.

“The United States and other developed countries constantly demand that developing countries eliminate trade barriers that protect them from competition, even as we steadfastly protect our own constituencies from exports that could help lift poor countries out of poverty. In our zeal to protect the patents of American drug companies, we’ve discouraged the ability of countries like Brazil to produce generic AIDS drugs that could save millions of lives” Obama 317-8. He goes on to talk about the American-backed IMF forcing things on other countries that Americans have not done on themselves—indeed, has shown a decided lack of courage in inflicting that much hardship on themselves, yet see no problem in directing it on others. He also talks about what the World Bank has done and why it is such a reviled institution in many parts of the globe.

Obama is surprisingly hard on Africa, and shows little understanding of the colonial legacy and how abysmally unworkable the groupings of people from that legacy have been.

But I agree with him when he says “Disorder breeds disorder; callousness toward others tends to spread among ourselves.” The problem of failed states, so aptly demonstrated by Lester Brown, is inescapable. They affect all of us.

Obama touches on the American fear of submitting itself to the same stipulations it demands of others. International law, courts, agreements, etc. are strongly supported and even enforced for everyone else, but suggesting that America be subject to the same standards conjures up wild and inflamed visions of external dictators, one-world anti-Christs, and Constitution-snuffers.

The picture is quite a bit more complex. On the one hand, America’s karmic wariness of its sins catching up to it is justified, and that judgment from the rest of the world might be a bit harsh. Yet in many ways, America’s own spendthrift and debt-fueled ways, short sighted materialism, and obeisance to Robber-Capitalism have already handed over much future foreign influence or even control. But also, if we profess to proclaim that we believe in democratic principles of representation, and we have representation internationally, our reluctance to participate in a larger governing structure seems hypocritical in the extreme. Given globalization and the environmental threats that respect neither geography nor political entities, this lack of our willingness to cooperate internationally only sets us up for further blowback, let alone failure in addressing those challenges. And if we irrationally fear every aspect of supra-nationalism, we are going to be the backward, disorganized, weak, and primitive low-brows that future civilizations from space might feel are at best worthy only of dismissal, exploitation, subjugation, or destruction. Right now, the rest of the world still wants our participation and even leadership in the institutional frameworks we set in place and that they bought into. When we reject that time and again, we undermine our long-term interest—and not just from our hypocrisy either. Instead of fixating on the hypocrisy that also exists at the UN--anti-Zionist blathering, repressive countries serving on human rights commissions, exploitative bureaucrats who do nothing but for themselves, etc.—we should strengthen the institutions we need for international cooperation to address the failing states of our civilization, and in the process we can address ALL the hypocrisy, including our own. Whether it is pandemic prevention and control, nuclear proliferation prevention and control, or the prevention and control of violent conflict, a properly strengthened (and ideally reformed) UN is vital.

Blowback can be internal too. Racial steering and panic peddling that drive white families away from neighborhoods irrationally; small incomes, violent streets, underfunded playgrounds, parks. And the schools, yes, the schools. Not only do they try to adjust to scant funding, but the whole phenomenon of indifference—nay, write-off—from the rest of society, merely breeds hordes of the disaffected, angry, despairing, and desperate who not only thoroughly disbelieve in the system, but lack any ethical compunction when operating in and around it. The results are tragic—and predictable—and they affect the greater society.

Obama does a good job of summarizing how we lost our way in the Cold War, creating something and becoming something that transformed us for the worse and weakened us in the process. He questions rightly the polarized and distorted views of the various “hawks” and “doves.” He takes to task the left for ignoring Iron Curtain brutality and only focusing on the rightist kind, or not sharing blame between corrupt leaders and multinationals. Yet he shows a myopic simplicity, an ingrained and unexamined acceptance of certain precepts, that keeps him mired today. He says at the time that he thought “given the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, staying ahead of the Soviets militarily seemed a sensible thing to do.” More myopic fixation on the immediate “enemy” and whatever geography that enemy might involve themselves in. Where was and is the long-term interest of the US in Afghanistan? It doesn’t exist, except at most in the aspect of reducing failed state status by encouraging and assisting the development that its people want, and even then indirectly, recognizing those with regional interest and influence might have priority.

And like the gospel too many conservatives follow, he over-ascribes credit for the Cold War’s end. All that increased spending by Reagan did was to take a terminal cancer-ridden dangerous criminal and get him to spend his last remaining funds on protecting his crap from us rather than keeping himself alive a little longer. The Soviet Union’s elites already knew the house was giving way. Gorbachev was only premier among them in recognizing that, and it is Gorbachev, not Reagan, who deserves much credit in advancing a philosophy that set the stage for the end of the Cold War. And all those extra trillions we spent? More treasure—borrowed treasure at that—we could never get back and that served no constructive economic or social purpose.

Obama does a fair job of giving us a look at how we took the goodwill and sympathy of the world over 9/11—sympathy that ranged from France to Egyptians in their streets and mosques—and drove the Taliban from power and inflicted deep and telling blows against Al-Qaeda (although with one marked decision failure). But then we took the goodwill and sympathy and squandered it and even reversed it. First by essentially leaving the Afghans with no resources or helping hands (and setting the stage for the Taliban’s resurgence), and secondly and even more importantly, diverting our attention, our focus, and our resources in the pursuit of something nearly entirely manufactured—the “threat” of Iraq. When the rest of the world did not follow us, we should have gotten a clue, but we didn’t. When no one stopped to think about why Saddam would try to conceal whether he had “weapons of mass destruction” (which, even if he had had them, might have been at most a few small biological weapons and a number of chemical ones—pretty low impact as far as WMDs go), we played squarely into the hands of Iran, the enemy he was trying to fool—and the foe whose lack of a credible enemy in present-day Iraq gives them license to threaten severe regional and world actions to our deep regret. Gods, we Americans are so short-sighted, arrogant, and trusting of those who don’t deserve our trust!

And those who questioned the unilateral invasion of Iraq and anything about how it was handled? Accused of being unpatriotic, of even aiding and abetting terrorists! The idea of loyal opposition, which Jefferson thought he emplaced following the expiration of the sickening Alien and Sedition Acts, were brushed aside in 2003 by those with an agenda of their own and willing to cynically use whatever means necessary to accomplish it, pushing aside the Constitution and manhandling lives at their whim. The history of this period will not be kind.